The Project Gutenberg Library of Australiana

Australian writers, works about Australia and works which may be of
interest to Australians.

This Australiana page boasts many ebooks by Australian writers, or books
about Australia. There is a diverse range; from the journals of the land
and sea explorers; to the early accounts of white settlement in Australia;
to the fiction of 'Banjo' Paterson, Henry Lawson and many other Australian
writers.

The following titles form part of the huge collection of ebooks freely
downloadable from Project Gutenberg Australia. Follow the links to read
more about the authors and titles and to read and/or download the ebooks.
Access other ebooks from our HOME page.

...All the Boers have fled to the Vaal--probably across
it, without stopping, to Johannesburg and Pretoria. There will be a siege,
possibly, for a month. You will sit upon a hill and watch the shelling.
The lyddite will soon bring them to their senses, once they are fairly
bottled up in a town, with the bricks and stones tumbling about their
ears. It is all very simple and straightforward now. You will be back
in time for shearing. From: Tommy Cornstalk

He had taken the plunge. He was going to conquer Sydney,
the siren city of the South, the Athens of Australia. Four days' steaming
across the Pacific had brought him to that centre of art and letters,
and he saw the gaunt cliffs of the Heads open to receive him. New Zealand
was merely a materialistic paddock for mutton and beef and butter. No
hope for him there: he needed a wider arena. His grey-headed editor had
always told him he would be called to Sydney.

To many who read my account of our amazing adventure on
the island of the Gland Men, it will serve as just another illustration
of how devious is the path of science. It will illustrate also how, from
the darkness that girds it round, terrible possibilities loom black and
menacing, terrifying those daring enough to wander from the beaten track.

Go to the South Pole site for more information about South Pole exploration.

Up to this moment the observations and our reckoning had
shown a surprising agreement. We reckoned that we should be at the Pole
on December 14. On the afternoon of that day we had brilliant weather--a
light wind from the south-east with a temperature of -10[degree] F. The
sledges were going very well. The day passed without any occurrence worth
mentioning, and at three o'clock in the afternoon we halted, as according
to our reckoning we had reached our goal.

William Cox was responsible for the making of the road over
the Blue Mountains in 1814, not long after the first successful crossing
by Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth. Cox's memoirs were not written by him
and, in the Introduction to the 1979 edition, Edna Hickson, great-great
grand daughter of William Cox, states that it is likely that a granson
of Cox was responsible for the publication, if not the author. Hickson
goes on to say that:
"The diary written in Chapter 9 has been transcribed from Cox's original
journal, now in the Mitchell Library (C708). This is the most interesting
section of the Memoir, and is the only part written by William Cox himself.
Some parts of the old road can still be found, and it is possible to walk
down the dreaded descent from Mount York into the Hartley Valley."
From: Memoirs of William Cox.

This is an early Austrlaian 'Science Fiction' story, which first appeared
in The South Australian Odd Fellows' Magazine, August, 1845)

But the ringing of bells and the firing of the great steam cannon at
Fort Boston announce the fact that the festivities of the day have now
commenced, and as our Lodge takes a prominent part in them, I must resign
my seat in the electro-phonotypographical chair to some one more worthy
to fill it.

More than two-thirds of the newspaper articles in this "scrapbook"
fall naturally into one of a number of broad topics.
These include letters and journals, from ordinary people, from the military
and from convicts, about the state of the colony,
crime and transportation and the vicissitudes of life in the new colony
of New South Wales.

Port Jackson, 14th November, 1788. I take the first opportunity
that has been given us to acquaint you with our disconsolate situation
in this solitary waste of the creation. Our passage, you may have heard
by the first ships, was tolerably favourable; but the inconveniences
since suffered for want of shelter, bedding, &c., are not to be
imagined by any stranger. However, we have now two streets, if four
rows of the most miserable huts you can possibly conceive of deserve
that name. Windows they have none, as from the Governor's house, &c.,
now nearly finished, no glass could be spared; so that lattices of twigs
are made by our people to supply their places. At the extremity of the
lines, where since our arrival the dead are buried, there is a place
called the church-yard; but we hear, as soon as a sufficient quantity
of bricks can be made, a church is to be built, and named St. Philip,
after the Governor. Notwithstanding all our presents, the savages still
continue to do us all the injury they can, which makes the soldiers'
duty very hard, and much dissatisfaction among the officers. [Extract
from a letter from a female convict.]

I have the honour to submit...the following Report, briefly
explaining the operations of the Expedition to Shark Bay; and adverting
to the geological structure, natural productions, water-parting, and general
character of the interior of this colony to the N. and E. of the settled
districts, and towards the Gascoigne River, described in the accompanying
maps and journals, and explored by the party under my command, in pursuance
of instructions received...

. . . am I not free from the cares that obtrude on those
of tougher texture of mind who find joy in the opposite to this peace
and unconcern for the rewards and honours of the world? Better this isolation
and moderation in all things than, racked with worries, to moan and fret
because of non-success in the ceaseless struggle for riches, or the increase
thereof; better than to bow down to and worship in the "soiled temple
of Commercialism" that haughty and supercilious old idol Mammon; better
than to offer continual sacrifices of rest, health, and the immediate
good of life to appease the exacting and silly deities of fashion and
society.
There may be some who, in a disparaging tone, will at this stage of my
confessions enter an accusation of impracticableness. To such a charge
I would plead guilty; but to those who proffer it, I neither appeal, nor
do I fear judgment. These writings are for those who see something in
life beyond the mere "getting on in world," or making a din in it.

1770 June 28. Tupia by Roasting his Coccos very much in
his Oven made them lose intirely their acridity; the Roots were so small
that we did not think them at all an object for the ship so resolvd to
content ourselves with the greens which are calld in the West Indies Indian
Kale. I went with the seamen to shew them the Place and they Gatherd a
large quantity. Saw one tree and only one notchd in the same manner as
those at Botany bay. We have ever since we have been here observd the
nests of a kind of Ants much like the White ants in the East indies but
to us perfectly harmless; they were always pyramidical, from a few inches
to 6 feet in hight and very much resembled stones which I have seen in
English Druidical monuments. Today we met with a large number of them
of all sizes rangd in a small open place which had a very pretty effect;
Dr Solander compard them to the Rune Stones on the Plains of Upsal in
Sweden, myself to all the smaller Druidical monuments I had seen.

Upon his trial on this occasion, it was that he appeared
to have first distinguished himself as a public speaker. He endeavoured,
with much art, but without any success, to work upon the feelings of the
Court and Jury; but the proofs against him were so clear, that he was
found guilty; and, pursuant to his sentence, he was removed once more
to the Hulks at Woolwich, about the middle of the year 1778. A Voyage
to Botany Bay

Just before sun-rising on Tuesday the 28th [April 1789],
while I was yet asleep, Mr. Christian, officer of the watch, Charles Churchill,
ship's corporal, John Mills, gunner's mate, and Thomas Burkitt, seaman,
came into my cabin, and seizing me, tied my hands with a cord behind my
back, threatening me with instant death if I spoke or made the least noise.
I called, however, as loud as I could in hopes of assistance; but they
had already secured the officers who were not of their party, by placing
sentinels at their doors. There were three men at my cabin door, besides
the four within; Christian had only a cutlass in his hand, the others
had muskets and bayonets. [William Bligh]

The general opinion of those who felt called upon to give
it was that Steve Brown, of the Scrubby Corner, 'wasn't any chop.' Not
that, on the surface, there seemed much evidence confirmatory of such
a verdict--rather, indeed, the contrary. If a traveller, drover or teamster
lost his stock, Steve, after a long and arduous search, was invariably
the first man to come across the missing animals--provided the reward
was high enough. Yet, in spite of this useful gift of discovery, its owner
was neither liked nor trusted. Uncharitable people--especially the ones
whom he took such trouble to oblige--would persist in hinting that none
knew so well where to find as those that hid. --From Steve Brown's
Bunyip

Every country, it is said, is governed as well as it deserves
to be; and since the same electors who have deliberately returned these
corrupt and time-serving politicians to represent them will choose the
members of the Federal Parliament, is it to be supposed that they will
return men of a higher class to represent them in its two Houses?

Furneaux's Land, or that land seen by Captain Furneaux in
the latitude of 39&deg; 00',** is a lofty hummocky promontory of hard
granite, of about 20 miles in length, and varying from 6 or 7 to 12 or
14 miles in breadth. Its firmness and vast durability make it well worthy
of being, what there is great reason to believe it is, the boundary point
of a large strait and a corner-stone of this great island, New Holland.
It is joined to the mainland by a low neck of sand, which is nearly divided
by a lagoon that runs in on the west side of it, and by a large shoal
inlet on the east.

In those days there were no telegraphs or railways, so that
when I arrived at Port Adelaide I had no means of making my arrival known
to my wife and family, and was unable to make a quick journey to the city,
but had to be jolted along a rough road in a very modest spring cart,
I was not even favored with a public demonstration, but "Never mind,"
thought I, "stop till I get home, for there I know I shall meet a
warm and loving reception from my dear wife and children, perhaps more
so than if I had been the Governor of the Province," and as it happened
I was not far wrong. After a great deal of pulling and hauling by the
children, and kissing and hugging by my wife, there was a pause, and then
came
questions and answers too numerous to mention, and amongst others there
was, "Have you been lucky, Tom?" "Yes!" replied I,
"lucky to get home safely." "That is not what I mean,"
said my wife, "have you got any
gold?" "Very little, I am sorry to say," was my reply.
The news of my return, however, soon spread, and the neighbors flocked
in to see a returned digger, but, alas, with very little gold.

Just before I left London a letter had been published in
The Times containing strong allegations of cruelty to Western Australian
aborigines by the white settlers of the North-West. I called upon The
Times, stated that I was going to Western Australia and offered to make
full investigation of the charges, and to write them the results. The
offer was accepted.

...a Bill was presented to the English Parliament "relative
to the Government of His Majesty's settlements in Western Australia on
the western coast of New Holland." This was passed on 14 May [1829] (10
George IV c.22) and provided that the King, with the advice of the Privy
Council, might make, or might authorise any person or persons resident
in the colony to make, such laws and ordinances as might be necessary
for the peace, order, and good government of His Majesty's subjects within
the settlement; that such laws, orders, etc., were to be laid before both
Houses of Parliament as soon as practicable thereafter; that no part of
the colonies of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land was to be included
in the new colony or settlements, and that the Act was to continue in
force until the end of 1834. This period of continuance was extended by
the various Acts from time to time until it was formally repealed by the
passage of 13-14 Victoria c.59, which dealt with the government of the
whole of the Australian colonies.

The creek was a banker, but the track led to a plank, which,
lashed to the willows on cither bank, was usually above flood-level. A
churning sound showed that the water was over the plank, and she must
wade along it. She turned to the sullen sky. There was no gleam of light
save in her resolute, white face.

Now the trader thought in this wise: "This is well for me,
for if I get the girl away thus quietly from all her relations I shall
save much in presents," and his heart rejoiced, for although not mean
he was a careful man. So he steered his boat seaward, between the seething
surf that boiled and hissed on both sides of the boat passage. From
"By Reef and Palm and Other Stories."

One of ours told me they had reached a man severely wounded
in the leg, in close proximity to his dug-out. After he had been placed
on the stretcher and made comfortable, he was asked whether there was
anything he would like to take with him. He pondered a bit, and then said:
"Oh! you might give me my diary--I would like to make a note of this before
I forget it!"

It was the time of the discovery of gold in Australia, and
after much discussion he and his elder brother joined the stream of adventurers
and sailed in 1852 for Victoria. In this rough "school of mines" he acquired
that insight into the building-up of the earth's crust and that practical
knowledge of minerals which served him so well in after-life as a mining
engineer. But although the whole colony was in the grip of the gold-fever,
Belt retained the same quiet habits of observation which had marked him
at home--for there, as to whatever part of the world his work subsequently
called him, the engineer was always at heart a naturalist. He proved an
excellent observer, and a certain speculative tendency led him to group
his observations so as to bring out their full theoretical bearing.

In 1822 Mr. J T. Bigge was commissioned, by the House of
Common in England, to report on the state of the Colony of New South Wales;
to report on the Judicial Establishments and to report on the state of
Agriculture and Trade, in the Colonies of both New South Wales and Van
Dieman's Land.

In order to make the Proprietors of the Van Diemen's Land Company
acquainted with the country in which they have invested their properly,
it has been thought desirable to give a brief Sketch of the History of
thatinteresting island, to point out some of the difficulties
against which early settlers have had to contend, the manner in which
they have been surmounted, and the prosperity which has resulted from
their industry and perseverance, that by comparing themselves with other
colonists, the Proprietors may be enabled to form a just estimate of
their prospects, not only from produce which forms annual income, but
from the increased and increasing value of their permanent investment in
land.

The Journal of Gregory Blaxland, 1813, edited by Frank Walker
(1861-1948)? (Incorporating "Journal of a Tour of Discovery Across
the Blue Mountains, NSW, in the year 1813". This ebook is available
from the Australian Explorers Journals
page.

On the 28th they proceeded about five miles and three-quarters.
Not being able to find water, they did not halt till five o'clock, when
they took up their station on the edge of the precipice. To their great
satisfaction, they discovered that what they had supposed to be sandy
barren land below the mountain, was forest land, covered with good grass
and with timber of an inferior quality. In the evening they contrived
to get their horses down the mountain by cutting a small trench with a
hoe, which kept them from slipping, where they again tasted fresh grass
for the first time since they left the forest land on the other side of
the mountain.

Just before sun-rising, while I was yet asleep, Mr. Christian, with
the master at arms, gunner's mate, and Thomas Burkitt, seaman, came
into my cabin, and seizing me tied my hands with a cord behind my back,
threatening me with instant death if I spoke or made the least noise:
I however called as loud as I could in hopes of assistance; but they
had already secured the officers who were not of their party by placing
sentinels at their doors. There were three men at my cabin door besides
the four within; Christian had only a cutlass in his hand, the others
had muskets and bayonets. I was hauled out of bed and forced on deck
in my shirt, suffering great pain from the tightness which with they
had tied my hands. I demanded the reason of such violence but received
no other answer than abuse for not holding my tongue. The master, the
gunner, the surgeon, Mr. Elphinstone, master's mate, and Nelson, were
kept confined below; and the fore hatchway was guarded by sentinels.
From "A Voyage to the South Sea..."

But it's all up now; there's no get away this time; and
I, Dick Marston, as strong as a bullock, as active as a rock-wallaby,
chock-full of life and spirits and health, have been tried for bush-ranging--robbery
under arms they call it--and though the blood runs through my veins like
the water in the mountain creeks, and every bit of bone and sinew is as
sound as the day I was born, I must die on the gallows this day month.
From 'Robbery Under Arms'.

Click here for many other
Guy Boothby titles available from this site.

"...You have lately been in Ashanti, I perceive."
I admitted that I had, and went on to inquire how he had become aware
of it; for as Kelleran had not known it until a few minutes before, I
did not see how he could be acquainted with the fact.
"It is not a very difficult thing to tell," he answered, with a smile
at my astonishment, "seeing that you carry about with you the mark of
a Gwato spear. If it were necessary I could tell you some more things
that would surprise you: for instance, I could tell you that the man who
cut the said spear out for you was an amateur at his work, that he was
left-handed, that he was short-sighted, and that he was recovering from
malaria at the time. All this is plain to the eye; but I see our friend
Kelleran fancies his dinner is getting cold, so we had better postpone
our investigations for a more convenient opportunity."

In this story of the bushrangers I do not pretend to have
included the names of all those who have at various times been called
bushrangers in Australia. That, as will be seen from what I have said
in the earlier chapters, would be not merely impossible but useless. I
believe, however, that I have collected some particulars about all those
who succeeded in winning even a local notoriety, and I have also endeavoured
to supply such personal characteristics of the leaders in the movement
as may throw some light on the causes which induced them to "take
to the bush." My principal object, however, has been to make the
picture as complete as possible...

Ships bound to the Australian colonies
sail at all times of the year; but it is by no means an easy matter to
ascertain the precise period fixed for their departure; for such is the
anxiety of the agents to secure passengers, that they will not hesitate to
state a positive time, although well aware that the vessel may not sail
for many weeks afterwards. It is therefore advisable to withhold the
passage money until the vessel is in a state of forwardness for sea, which
can only be ascertained by a person going himself on board, and finding
out what portion of the cargo is shipped: if he cannot do so personally,
he should employ a friend to act for him. Without taking this precaution,
the emigrant may be detained in London, at very great expense, and during
a considerable time: indeed I know of one instance in which a family were
induced, through the misrepresentations of an agent, to go from Aberdeen
to London, where, after having made their arrangements and paid their
passage-money, they were detained three months.

We had a little difficulty in crossing Cox's River, which
was somewhat swollen. There is no bridge, and the gigantic oaks which
have been felled from time to time across the stream have all been swept
away. Bill sniffed at the Cox, and called it a dribbling creek, but it
took him an hour to get from one side of it to the other, with his swag
and his clothes in one big bundle on his head. There are a couple of selectors'
huts near the ford, and a half-caste woman strolled down to the river
bank to watch us. But she offered us no advice, and I mutely thanked her
for her forbearance. She was the last person we saw to-day. There are
not many houses near that bridle-track.

"I say, Dora, can't we get up some special excitement for sister Maggie,
seeing she is to be here for Christmas? I fancy she will, in her home
inexperience, expect a rather jolly time spending Christmas in this
forsaken spot. I am afraid that my letters home, in which I coloured
things up a bit, are to blame for that," my husband added ruefully.

"What can we do, Jack?" I asked. "I can invite the Dunbars, the Connors
and the Sutherlands over for a dance, and you can arrange for a kangaroo-hunt
the following day. That is the usual thing when special visitors come,
isn't it?" From A Christmas with Australian Blacks.

It is now universally admitted that there exists in this country, great
competition for employment in every kind of labour, bodily and mental,
amongst all classes of persons, whether well or ill-educated. The
debates in Parliament, the evidence supplied to Committees of both
Houses, and almost every newspaper, furnish proof that the number of
persons in this kingdom who are struggling with difficulty for the means
of subsistence, is extremely great; that the happiness and prosperity of
society at large is thereby materially lessened, and that even the
stability of our political institutions is occasionally placed in
jeopardy by this state of things.

Abel Janszoon Tasman was unquestionably one of the greatest,
if not the greatest, of the navigators between Magellan, (who, in the
early years of the 16th century first crossed the Pacific Ocean), and
Cook, who in the latter years of the eighteenth century practically opened
Oceania and Australia to Europe.

...the Southern Cross has given up her charge, and her mixed assortment
of prisoners are penned in Hyde Park Barracks--the more desperate
portion to be employed upon public works, the remainder to be assigned
to various masters, and scattered broadcast among the settlements. From
Sydney, the capital town of the young colony, we turn northward, and
reach the scene of our future chapters--the Valley of the Hunter River.
Situated several miles above the mouth of the river was an extensive
cattle farm, the property of Walter Shelley, Esq.

Subsequent to the publication of Mr. Dalrymple's Historical
Collection, a manuscript Journal of Captain Tasman's, with charts
and views of the lands discovered by him, was brought to this country,
and was purchased of the then possessor by Mr. Banks (the present Sir
Joseph Banks) shortly after his return from the South Sea. In Sir
Joseph's Library it has been preserved not merely as a curiosity. To facilitate
the means of information from so valuable a manuscript, he procured it
to be translated into English; and the Dutch original with the English
translation are kept on the same shelf in his Library. From these, with
the permission of the Right honourable owner, the account of Abel Jansen
Tasman's Voyage is now offered to the public. The English translation
was made in 1776, by the Reverend Charles Godfrey Woide, who was then
Chaplain to His Majesty's Dutch Chapel at St. James's Palace, and afterwards
Under Librarian to the British Museum, and is done with much care and
judgment.

... during my wanderings through Western Australia, in the
capacity of a mining engineer, I came across a good many of the natives;
and taking a profound interest in everything connected with the colony
I resolved to set down in brief and simple form such facts as I could
glean regarding this most curious specimen of the human race. I lay no
more claim to originality than is due to one who has arranged his matter
in his own way, and added a few thoughts suggested and accruing.

Guthrie Carey began life young. He was not a week over twenty-one
when, between two voyages, he married Lily Harrison, simply because she
was a poor, pretty, homeless little girl, who had to earn her living as
a nondescript lady-help in hard situations, and never had a holiday. He
saw her in a Sandridge boarding-house, slaving beyond her powers, and
made up his mind that she should rest. With sailor zeal and promptitude,
he got the consent of her father, who was glad to be rid of her out of
the way of a new wife; took the trembling, clinging child to the nearest
parson, and made her a pensioner on his small wages in a tiny lodging
of her own. From "Sisters".

The old command, "Charge!" was distinctly heard, and the
red-coats rushed with fixed bayonets to storm the stockade. A few cuts,
kicks and pulling down, and the job was done too quickly for their wonted
ardour, for they actually thrust their bayonets on the body of the dead
and wounded strewed about on the ground. A wild "hurrah!" burst out and
'the Southern Cross' was torn down, I should say, among their laughter,
such as if it had been a prize from a May-pole.

The night of the 10th our supply was down to three gallons.
None could be spared for the horses now, none could be spared for beef-boiling,
only a little for bread, and a drop each to drink. Every rock-hole we
had seen--but one--was dry. Alexander Spring would be dry. We should have
to make for the Empress Spring, fifty miles beyond. Every thing pointed
to the probability of this sequence of events, therefore the greatest
care must be exercised. The horses would die within a few miles, but the
camels were still staunch in spite of the weakening effect of the sand-ridges,
so there was no need for anxiety. Yet we could not help feeling anxious;
one's nerves get shaky from constant wear and tear, from want of food
and rest. We had been in infinitely worse positions than this; in fact,
with health and strength and fresh camels no thought of danger would have
been entertained, but it is a very different matter after months of constant
strain on body and mind. Faith--that is the great thing, to possess--faith
that all is for the best, and that all will "pan out" right in the end.

Narrative of an Expedition Undertaken Under the Direction of
E. B. Kennedy, by William Carron, a survivor of the expedition.
This ebook is available from the Australian Explorers Journals page.

Edmund Kennedy led an expedition from Rockingham Bay in
an attempt to reach Cape York by land. Kennedy and eight other companions
on the expedition were either killed by aborigines or died of starvation.
William Carron was one of the survivors. The text also includes statements
by Jackey Jackey, an aborigine who accompanied the expedition, and by
others involved in the subsequent search and rescue of the survivors.

At times, you may see men, half-mad, throwing sovereigns,
like halfpence, out of their pockets into the streets; and I once saw
a digger, who was looking over a large quantity of bank-notes, deliberately
tear to pieces and trample in the mud under his feet every soiled or ragged
one he came to, swearing all the time at the gold-brokers for "giving
him dirty paper money for pure Alexander gold; he wouldn't carry dirt
in his pocket; not he; thank God! he'd plenty to tear up and spend too."

I sent for Hankey, and asked him about cells. He says that
the gaol is crowded to suffocation. "Solitary confinement" is a mere name.
There are six men, each sentenced to solitary confinement, in a cell together.
The cell is called the "nunnery". It is small, and the six men were naked
to the waist when I entered, the perspiration pouring in streams off their
naked bodies! It is disgusting to write of such things. --from 'For the
Term of his Natural Life'

The discovery of a continental island like Australia was
not a deed that could be performed in a day. Many years passed away, and
many voyages to these shores of ours were undertaken by the leading maritime
nations of Europe, before the problematic and mysterious TERRA AUSTRALIS
INCOGNITA of the ancients became known, even in a summary way, and its
insularity and separation from other lands positively established. From
the Introduction to The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea

The coast, as the boats drew near Port Jackson, wore so
unfavourable an appearance, that Captain Phillip's utmost expectation
reached no farther than to find what Captain Cook, as he passed by, thought
might be found, shelter for a boat. In this conjecture, however, he was
most agreeably disappointed, by finding not only shelter for a boat, but
a harbour capable of affording security to a much larger fleet than would
probably ever seek for shelter or security in it. In one of the coves
of this noble and capacious harbour, equal if not superior to any yet
known in the world, it was determined to fix the settlement; and on the
23rd [January, 1788], having examined it as fully as the time would allow,
the governor and his party left Port Jackson and its friendly and peaceful
inhabitants (for such he everywhere found them), and returned to Botany
Bay.

And away circles the colt, slapping at the bit with his
front feet, whilst your historic saddle shines in the sun, and the stirrup-irons
occasionally meet high in the air. And away in chase go two of the chaps
on their bits of stuff. Meanwhile, you explain to the other two that the
spill serves you right for riding so carelessly; and that, though your
soul lusts to have it out with the colt, a stringent appointment in the
township will force you to clear as soon as you can get your saddle. Such
is life.

Saturday, 28th. In the P.M. hoisted out the Pinnace and
Yawl in order to attempt a landing, but the Pinnace took in the Water
so fast that she was obliged to be hoisted in again to stop her leakes.
At this time we saw several people a shore, 4 of whom where carrying a
small Boat or Canoe, which we imagin'd they were going to put in to the
Water in order to Come off to us; but in this we were mistaken. Being
now not above 2 Miles from the Shore Mr. Banks, Dr. Solander, Tupia, and
myself put off in the Yawl, and pull'd in for the land to a place where
we saw 4 or 5 of the Natives, who took to the Woods as we approached the
Shore; which disappointed us in the expectation we had of getting a near
View of them, if not to speak to them. But our disappointment was heightened
when we found that we no where could effect a landing by reason of the
great Surf which beat everywhere upon the shore. We saw haul'd up upon
the beach 3 or 4 small Canoes, which to us appeared not much unlike the
Small ones of New Zeland. In the wood were several Trees of the Palm kind,
and no under wood; and this was all we were able to observe from the boat,
after which we return'd to the Ship about 5 in the evening.* (* The place
where Cook attempted to land is near Bulli, a place where there is now
considerable export of coal. A large coal port, Wollongong, lies a little
to the southward.) At this time it fell Calm, and we were not above a
Mile and a half from the Shore, in 11 fathoms, and within some breakers
that lay to the Southward of us; but luckily a light breeze came off from
the Land, which carried us out of danger, and with which we stood to the
Northward. At daylight in the morning we discover'd a Bay, ( Botany Bay.)
which appeared to be tollerably well shelter'd from all winds, into which
I resolved to go with the Ship, and with this View sent the Master in
the Pinnace to sound the Entrance, while we keept turning up with the
Ship, having the wind right out. At noon the Entrance bore North-North-West,
distance 1 Mile.

I believe that, both in the old country and in the neighboring
colonies, as well as in Queensland, the early incidents of our origin
and growth will furnish a by no means useless contribution to the great
store of facts which concern the general progress of humanity. Unfortunately,
few amongst us have time or opportunity to collect that portion which
elucidates either; while day by day the sources of information are decreasing,
and those who could either furnish it, or indicate where it could be found,
are silently passing away. Thus believing, and thus regretfully observing,
I have collected the material for the first volume, and wrought as I have
been enabled in its arrangement and distribution.

The reasons for this book are as follow:--Whilst talking
over early days with Mr. Courtenay-Luck, the popular Secretary of the
Commercial Travellers' Club, that gentleman suggested that I should write
a paper, to be read at a meeting of the Historical Society of Queensland.

In writing that paper, so many long-forgotten men, places and incidents
came back to memory that I thought my reminiscences might prove interesting
to others. I may be occasionally incorrect in dates, or in the sequence
of events, but I relate facts and personal experiences. As they are,
I leave them to the kind consideration of readers.

There was a man seated at a table in what appeared to be
a vast physical laboratory. On the table, which was littered with instruments
and apparatus, stood a large glass tank in which a fish could be seen
swimming. The silence was broken only by occasional movements of the man
utterly absorbed in the work he was doing. (Out of the Silence)

The political story of Australia is not an obviously interesting
story. Great things have happened, but they have happened gradually, and
without observation. There have been no wars of conquest, for a handful
of people were dowered with a continent; no wars of defence, for the continent
was protected by the fleet of Nelson; no racial conflict, for the people
were as entirely British as the people of the British Isles. The great
battles of freedom had been already fought and won before Australia came
of age. The principles of Democracy and Liberty, of Colonial Home Rule
and Responsible Government, had been recognised as essential principles
of British civilisation. Australians had not to fight; they had only to
ask, and to argue. There were mistakes and delays and friction; but in
general, Australia got the full privileges of British citizenship as soon
as Australia was ready to use them with advantage to herself. Our story
has not been the story of a people striving to be free. It has been the
story of an infant society gradually growing into the freedom that was
recognised to be its natural birthright.

They had reached the Murray, and Sturt now held the second
key to the riddle of the rivers: the ring was closing fast--the upper
Darling, Macquarie, Lachlan, Murrumbidgee, and now the Murray--no longer
mysteries, but very unromantic realities. From Charles Sturt.

Amidst the ardour with which geographical research has been
patronized and prosecuted in almost every other portion of the globe,
it is a subject of surprise and regret that so little anxiety should have
been shown by geographers, and even by men of science in general, to increase
our knowledge of the interior of the Australian continent. But so it is,--that
land of anomalies may still be said to be almost a terra incognita; and,
limited as may be the information which we possess of its internal features,
yet, with the conviction that some concise notice of the way in which
that knowledge has been progressively acquired will not prove altogether
uninteresting to the Geographical Society, I beg to lay before it, in
a brief view, the results of the several expeditions, which have been
employed in inland discovery since the first settlement was formed at
Port Jackson; to which I have added, a few occasional remarks on the different
routes which have been pursued...

On this the islanders conducted our people farther up the
country, and indeed to a most pleasant place, where they seated them under
a very sightly Belay, on mats of a very delicate texture, and variety
of beautiful colours, treating them with two cocoa-nuts, one for the chief,
and one for our skipper.

In the evening our people returned on board with a hog, and an account
that no water was to be had; they however made so good a day's work
of it, as to get forty pigs, seventy fowls, and vegetables in abundance,
for a few nails, a little fail-cloth, etc.

The sea-fish that we saw here (for here was no river, land, or pond
of fresh water to be seen) are chiefly sharks. There are abundance of
them in this particular sound, and I therefore give it the name of Shark's
Bay. Here are also skates, thornbacks, and other fish of the ray kind
(one sort especially like the sea-devil) and garfish, bonetas, etc.
Of shellfish we got here mussels, periwinkles, limpets, oysters, both
of the pearl kind and also eating-oysters, as well the common sort as
long oysters; beside cockles, etc. The shore was lined thick with many
other sorts of very strange and beautiful shells, for variety of colour
and shape, most finely spotted with red, black, or yellow, etc., such
as I have not seen anywhere but at this place. I brought away a great
many of them; but lost all except a very few, and those not of the best.
From 'A Voyage to New Holland, etc. in the year 1699'.

The greyhounds pursued a kangaroo rat into a hollow tree,
out of which we dragged it: it is an animal as large as a rabbit, but
with the figure of a kangaroo. A few years since this country abounded
with wild animals; but now the emu is banished to a long distance, and
the kangaroo is become scarce; to both the English greyhound has been
highly destructive. It may be long before these animals are altogether
exterminated, but their doom is fixed. From 'The Voyage of the Beagle'

Just picture the scene for yourself. The weird, unexplored
land stretches away on every side, though one could not see much of it
on account of the grassy hillocks. I, a white man, was alone among the
blacks in the terrible land of "Never Never,"--as the Australians call
their terra incognita; and I was wrestling with a gigantic cannibal chief
for the possession of two delicately-reared English girls, who were in
his power.

'Er name's Doreen ...Well spare me bloomin' days!
You could er knocked me down wiv 'arf a brick!
Yes, me, that kids meself I know their ways,
An' 'as a name for smoogin' in our click!
I just lines up an' tips the saucy wink.
But strike! The way she piled on dawg! Yer'd think
A bloke was givin' back-chat to the Queen....
'Er name's Doreen.

On our return, when nearing Pancridge, the horse cast a shoe, and the
other boy and I took him to a forge. The other boy left me at the forge
for a time, and went for a stroll. By-and-bye we both went back to the
boat, and, on reaching Brood, my companion told me that he had a
beautiful long-sleeved plush waistcoat that his mother had given him. He
arranged that when we got to Wolverhampton I was to take the waistcoat
and try and sell it so that with the money we might go to the play
together at Birmingham. I was told to say that the waistcoat was my own,
and was quite unaware that it had been stolen when I was waiting with
the horse at Pancridge. I went on my errand and, near the courthouse, I
saw a man whom I thought looked a likely purchaser. I asked him if he
would like to buy a waistcoat, assuring him that it was my own property.
He said, "Oh yes, come in and let me have a look at it." I went with
him, when I found to my horror that I was offering a stolen waistcoat to
the constable of the place. He told me that he was looking for someone
of my sort as the coach from Pancridge had brought notice of the
robbery. Thus was I, though innocent, again laid by the heels in
Wolverhampton.

The speaker was a young man, respectably dressed, with a countenance
somewhat pale, but giving evidence of a determined will, and a general
demeanor which indicated intelligence and good breeding. Standing in
the dock, arraigned before the judge of assize at Winchester, in a crowded
court, with the serious charge of forgery against him, James Stewart
in a firm tone of voice pleaded thus, and, the plea being recorded,
the trial commenced. The Crown Court in that ancient assize hall is
very commodious, and the galleries are sufficiently capacious to hold
several hundred spectators, but upon this occasion every nook and corner
was occupied.

This copyright work was written in 1997 and permission has
been given to Project Gutenberg to list it. The author writes, in the
Introduction to the book..."This is a book about the computer underground.
It is not a book about law enforcement agencies, and it is not written
from the point of view of the police officer. From a literary perspective,
I have told this story through the eyes of numerous computer hackers.
In doing so, I hope to provide the reader with a window into a mysterious,
shrouded and usually inaccessible realm. Who are hackers? Why do they
hack? There are no simple answers to these questions. Each hacker is different.
To that end, I have attempted to present a collection of individual but
interconnected stories, bound by their links to the international computer
underground. These are true stories, tales of the world's best and the
brightest hackers and phreakers. There are some members of the underground
whose stories I have not covered, a few of whom would also rank as world-class.
In the end, I chose to paint detailed portraits of a few hackers rather
than attempt to compile a comprehensive but shallow catalogue."

Mr. Doyle observed the foreign invasion with mingled feelings of righteous
anger and pained solicitude. He had found fossicking by the creek very
handy to fall back upon when the wood-jambing trade was not brisk; but
now that industry was ruined by Chinese competition, and Michael could
only find relief in deep and earnest profanity.

Amongst other calamities attendant on this visitation [of
a terrible cyclone] was the loss of a small coasting schooner, named the
'Eva', bound from Cleveland to Rockingham Bay, with cargo and passengers.
Only those who have visited Australia can picture to themselves the full
horror of a captivity amongst the degraded blacks with whom this unexplored
district abounds; and a report of white men having been seen amongst the
wild tribes in the neighbourhood of the Herbert River induced the inhabitants
of Cardwell to institute a search party to rescue the crew of the unhappy
schooner, should they still be alive; or to gain some certain clue to
their fate, should they have perished.

This Australian Idyll is largely based on reminiscences
of a year (1878) spent as school teacher at the spot described. The haunting
memories of that unique year in my life still pursued me, on my return
to London, amid medical studies at St. Thomas's Hospital. I attempted
at intervals to throw those memories into a fictional form, and my friend
Oliver Schreiner, interested in my experiment, encouraged me to pursue
it. This was round about the year 1886, some eight years after leaving
the real Sparkes Creek, but while my memories of the life there were still
vivid and precise. The only critical judgment to which I submitted the
Idyll was that of my friend Arthur Symons who was pleased to find it of
the same class as Flaubert's _Contes_. But I put it aside, making no attempt
at publication. Apart from the fact that it was far removed from the field
of my choosen work in life, I suspected that if the book ever wandered
into the real Kanga Creek it might give offence to people for whom I cherished
only friendly feelings.

Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia,
and Overland from Adelaide to King George's Sound. This ebook
is available from the Australian
Explorers Journals page.

An account of the manners and customs of the Aborigines and the
state of their relations with Europeans--included in Journals
of Expeditions of Discovery, above.

We again moved away at dawn, through a country which gradually
become more scrubby, hilly, and sandy. The horses crawled on for twenty-one
miles, when I halted for an hour to rest, and to have a little tea from
our now scanty stock of water. The change which I had noticed yesterday
in the vegetation of the country, was greater and more cheering every
mile we went, although as yet the country itself was as desolate and inhospitable
as ever. . .In the course of our journey this morning, we met with many
holes in the sheets of limestone, which occasionally coated the surface
of the ground; in these holes the natives appeared to procure an abundance
of water after rains, but it was so long since any had fallen, that all
were dry and empty now. In one deep hole only, did we find the least trace
of moisture; this had at the bottom of it, perhaps a couple of wine glasses
full of mud and water, and was most carefully blocked up from the birds
with huge stones: it had evidently been visited by natives, not an hour
before we arrived at it, but I suspect they were as much disappointed
as we were, upon rolling away all the stones to find nothing in it.

In the history of exploration are to be found some of the
brightest examples of courage and fortitude presented by any record. In
the succeeding pages I have tried to bring these episodes prominently
to the fore, and bestow upon them the meed of history. Ernest Favenc.

The most important discovery, which the following pages
record, is certainly that of the navigable river in Moreton Bay, four
hundred miles to the northward of Port Jackson, since this is the direction
in which it is desirable to extend the colony of New South Wales. The
honour of this discovery has fortunately fallen to the lot of Mr. Oxley,
to indemnify him for his double disappointment in the termination of the
rivers Lachlan and Macquarie. The wonder is, not that he has discovered
it; but that this adventure should have been reserved for him; for the
master of one of the vessels belonging to the colonial government had
been to Moreton Bay only a few months before Mr. Oxley, for the very purpose
of survey; and Captain Cook, as long ago as the year 1770, suggested,
that "some on board having, in addition to a small space where no
land was visible, also observed that the sea looked paler than usual,
were of opinion that the bottom of Moreton Bay opened into a river."

There is no probability, that any other detached body of
land, of nearly equal extent, will ever be found in a more southern latitude;
the name Terra Australis will, therefore, remain descriptive of the geographical
importance of this country, and of its situation on the globe: it has
antiquity to recommend it; and, having no reference to either of the two
claiming nations, appears to be less objectionable than any other which
could have been selected. Had I permitted myself any innovation upon the
original term, it would have been to convert it into AUSTRALIA; as being
more agreeable to the ear, and an assimilation to the names of the other
great portions of the earth.

* * * * *.

After running near an hour in this critical manner, some high breakers
were distinguished ahead; and behind them there appeared no shade of
cliffs. It was necessary to determine, on the instant, what was to be
done, for our bark could not live ten minutes longer. On coming to what
appeared to be the extremity of the breakers, the boat's head was brought
to the wind in a favourable moment, the mast and sail taken down, and
the oars got out. Pulling then towards the reef during the intervals
of the heaviest seas, we found it to terminate in a point; and in three
minutes were in smooth water under its lee. A white appearance, further
back, kept us a short time in suspense; but a nearer approach showed
it to be the beach of a well-sheltered cove, in which we anchored for
the rest of the night. So sudden a change, from extreme danger to comparatively
perfect safety, excited reflections which kept us some time awake: we
thought Providential Cove a well-adapted name for this place; but by
the natives, as we afterwards learned, it is called Watta-Mowlee.

I now propose to relate my own experiences--the results
of three journeys of exploration, conducted by myself. The first was undertaken
in the hope of discovering some traces of Leichardt; the second nearly
retraced the route of Eyre; the third was across the desert from Western
Australia to the telegraph line in South Australia. The first journey
did not result in obtaining the information sought for; the second and
third journeys were successfully accomplished.--John Forrest

There are many who recollect full well the rush at Chinaman's
Flat. It was in the height of its prosperity that an assault was committed
upon a female of a character so diabolical in itself, as to have aroused
the utmost anxiety in the public as well as in the police, to punish the
perpetrator thereof. The case was placed in my hands, and as it presented
difficulties so great as to appear to an ordinary observer almost insurmountable,
the overcoming of which was likely to gain approbation in the proper quarter,
I gladly accepted the task.--Traces of Crime

The principal object of this Work is to remove the erroneous
and discreditable notions current in England concerning this City, in
common with every thing else connected with the Colony. We shall endeavour
to represent Sydney as it really is--to exhibit its spacious Gas-lit Streets,
crowded by an active and thriving Population--its Public Edifices, and
its sumptuous Shops, which boldly claim a comparison with those of London
itself: and to shew that the Colonists have not been inattentive to matters
of higher import, we shall display to our Readers the beautiful and commodious
Buildings raised by piety and industry for the use of Religion. It is
true, all are not yet in a state of completion; but, be it remembered,
that what was done gradually in England, in the course of many ceuturies,
has been here effected in the comparatively short period of sixty years.

The following pages have been written chiefly for my friends
in Van Diemen's Land in order not to leave them in ignorance of the steps
which I have taken to vindicate the honour of my late office, and my character
as their Governor, from ex-parte representations on points on which, so
long as I exercised the functions of government, I was precluded from
offering any explanations. John Franklin

This was life--my life--my career, my brilliant career! I was fifteen--fifteen!
A few fleeting hours and I would be old as those around me. I looked
at them as they stood there, weary, and turning down the other side
of the hill of life. When young, no doubt they had hoped for, and dreamed
of, better things--had even known them. But here they were. This had
been their life; this was their career. It was, and in all probability
would be, mine too. My life--my career--my brilliant career!

Captain Tobias Furneaux was an English navigator and Royal
Navy officer, who accompanied James Cook on his second voyage of exploration.
He was the first man to circumnavigate the world in both directions, and
later commanded a British vessel during the American Revolutionary War.
This excerpt covers the only Australian landfall in Cook's second voyage
around the world. [ebook editor]

...on a beautiful summer's evening towards dusk, Gilbert
Larose, the best known of all the detectives of the great Commonwealth
of Australia, was crouching down behind a small bush high up upon the
sides of Mount Lofty, watching with an annoyed and frowning face four
men who were climbing slowly up the slope towards him. They were only
about two hundred yards away, and through his binoculars he could discern
plainly the expressions upon their faces. They looked alert and eager,
as if they had some particular and important business on hand. They were
sturdy, thick-set men, and were all armed with stout sticks. They walked
spread out, fanwise, with about ten yards between them, and they peered
intently into all the bushes as they passed.

It seemed unlikely, certainly. All the anxious days he had
spent seeking the precious metal, and never a sign of gold, and now, after
eighteen months of existence in this desolate hole, here under his very
eyes, was sticking up out of the ground what looked like a bar of cleanly-melted
gold. He was twenty miles to the south-east of his hut this morning, simply
having ridden out in this direction the night before, because he had nothing
else to do, and he thought he might as well follow the trend of the range
eastward, and see what the country was like. FromKirkham's
Find

Gibson, having had my horse, rode away in my saddle with
my field glasses attached; but everything was gone--man and horse alike
swallowed in this remorseless desert. The weather was cool at night, even
cold, for which I was most thankful, or we could not have remained so
long away from water. We consulted together, and could only agree that
unless we came across Gibson's remains by mid-day, we must of necessity
retreat, otherwise it would be at the loss of fresh lives, human and equine,
for as he was mounted on so excellent an animal as the Fair Maid, on account
of whose excellence I had chosen her to ride, it seemed quite evident
that this noble creature had carried him only too well, and had been literally
ridden to death, having carried her rider too far from water ever to return,
even if he had known where it lay.

Courage, comrades, this is certain, All is for the best
--
There are lights behind the curtain --Gentiles, let us rest.
As the smoke-rack veers to seaward, From "the ancient clay",
With its moral drifting leeward, Ends the wanderer's lay.

I have the honor to...report that leaving the Alice Springs, April
21st, with a party consisting of four white men, three Affghans, and
a black boy, I travelled along the telegraph line to latitude 22°
28' S., about forty miles south of Central Mount Stuart. From this point
I followed the Reynolds Range about W.N.W. for forty-five miles; I was
then obliged to turn S.W., passing a high bluff, piled by Major Warburton,
and on to the western extremity of the MacDonnell Ranges (Giles's Mount
Liebig). Here I was compelled to turn south, crossing Mr. Giles's track
several times, the eastern arm of his Lake Amadeus, and on to a high
hill, east of Mount Olga, which I named Ayers Rock...

To the stranger the harbour of Port Jackson appears pleasing
and picturesque, as he advances up it to the town. A small island with
a house on it, named Garden Island, (which afterwards became my residence)
enriches the view. On the main is Walamoola, so named by the natives,
a rural situation, where Mr. Palmer, the Commissary, has built a large
and commodious house, and bestowed much labour in cultivating the land
round it. Such a house in so young a Colony excites a degree of surprise
in a new comer. The town of Sydney is much larger and more respectable
that can well be imagined considering the time it has been built. The
streets are by order made broad and strait; each house is generally separated
from the adjoining ones, an excellent regulation in case of fire; few
or any are without gardens; and many of the houses are large and commodious.
When I landed I found that the heavy rain, which I had experienced some
days before, had been equally felt here. The Hawkesbury River had been
swelled almost instaneously to the great annoyance of the Settlers on
its banks. Various were the causes assigned for the rapid increase of
water; some supposed it owing to the bursting of a cloud in the mountains,
which hurried the water down the level country; others to the overflowing
of a lake or morass, which augmented the currents of all the neighbouring
rivers, for that at Paramatta had also overflown its banks to a very great
height, as I afterwards was shewn by Dr. Thompson, now the Resident Colonial
Surgeon, as almost to be supposed impossible.

"Numerous inquiries having been made for copies of the Journals
of the Explorations by the Messrs. Gregory in the Western, Northern, and
Central portions of Australia, and as these journals have hitherto only
been partially published in a fragmentary form, and are now out of print,
it has been deemed desirable to collect the material into one volume,
for convenience of reference, and to place on permanent record some of
the earlier attempts to penetrate the terra incognita which then constituted
so vast a portion of the Australian Continent." Preface to Journals
of Australian Exploration

Journals of
Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia.
This ebook is available from the Australian Explorers Journals page.

Finding that the man remained absent longer than I had expected
I called loudly to him, but received no answer, and therefore passed round
some rocks which hid the tree from my view to look after him. Suddenly
I saw him close to me breathless and speechless with terror, and a native
with his spear fixed in a throwing-stick in full pursuit of him; immediately
numbers of other natives burst upon my sight; each tree, each rock, seemed
to give forth its black denizen, as if by enchantment. A moment before,
the most solemn silence pervaded these woods. We deemed that not a human
being moved within miles of us, and now they rang with savage and ferocious
yells, and fierce armed men crowded round us on every side, bent on our
destruction.

Taken altogether, the site may be considered as an irregular
amphitheatre--with Ainslie at the north-east in the rear, flanked on either
side by Black Mountain and Pleasant Hill, all forming the top galleries;
with the slopes to the water, the auditorium; with the waterway and flood
basin, the arena; with the southern slopes reflected in the basin, the
terraced stage and setting of monumental Government structures sharply
defined rising tier on tier to the culminating highest internal forested
hill of the Capitol; and with Mugga Mugga, Red Hill, and the blue distant
mountain ranges, sun reflecting, forming the back scene of the theatrical
whole.

"Mr. Farrer's self-imposed task of improving the flour-strength
of our wheats and producing rust-resisting and drought-resisting varieties
has greatly influenced both quality and yield in this, his adopted land,
and has materially affected wheat production in almost every other country."

Crossing the river on the ferry at Bateman Bay, from which
the wonderful Toll Gates can be seen out at sea, I conceived an idea that
this place had marvelous potentialities for fishing. As a matter of fact,
the place haunted me so that I went back, motored all around the bay,
walked out upon the many wooded capes that projected far out toward the
sentinel Toll Gates, patrolled the curved sandy beaches, and finally interviewed
the market fishermen. The result was that I broke camp at Bermagui and
chose a lovely site three miles out from Bateman Bay, where we pitched
camp anew. It turned out that the vision in my mind's eye had been right.
This camp was the most beautiful and satisfactory of all the hundreds
of camps I have had in different countries. How it will turn out from
a fishing standpoint remains to be seen. But I would like to gamble on
my instinct.

Hamlet was an avid walker. In the early 20th Century he walked twice
from Bribane to Sydney and once from Sydney to Melbourne. He wrote a
number of newpaper articles about his trips and these are gathered together
in this ebook.

"Don Dorrigo Carbonera makes a fine sonorous mouthful of a name,
which, if not exactly suggestive of "Castles in Spain," may
nevertheless be here used in respect of the brave toilers and workers
up on the Dorrigo; for whatever their intended careers may have been,
they now at least appear to be, one and all, veritable timber-cutters
and charcoal-burners, every man wielding his axe and firestick to some
purpose. Nowhere else will you see such a desolating display of blackened
and half carbonised timber, such gaunt hollow stumps, the more dead
shells of the old-time forest trees, their sombre ebony logs lying about
all over the newly fenced paddocks in obstructive confusion, all telling
of the settlers' dogged determination to clear the land at all costs."
(Written on a walk from Brisbane to Sydney in 1907)

The original intention of the expedition was to suggest
Buckland Hill as the site for a town for the proposed settlement. This,
however, was superseded by Captain Stirling, on his arrival with the first
immigrants, in the ship "Parmelia", in June, 1829, by placing
the capital, Perth, about twelve miles from the port, at which he settled
the town of Fremantle. The elucidation of the naming of Perth after the
birthplace of Sir George Murray, the then Secretary of State for the Colonies,
in honor of whom also towns in New South Wales, Tasmania, and Canada were
named, and the origin of the naming of Mount Eliza after Lady Darling,
should set aside many absurd stories for these nomenclatures.

He reached for the comb in the PLUTARCH, and slit the package.
Unfolding this with a slight increase of colour, he eyed the few words:
"Money to hand. Secured boys. EMERALD near dry. Launch next Saturday.
Sail on Wednesday morning, August 22nd. Hang off Spring Bay on Thursday,
where boat will wait near mouth of creek after dusk."

Even before the voyage of Magellan, geographers had a strong
belief in the existence of land beyond the southern ocean, and this was
greatly strengthened by the passage of that navigator through the strait
which bears his name, as it was naturally imagined that the land to the
south of the strait formed part of a great continental mass. Whether or
not the ancient and medieval geographers had to any extent based their
ideas on vague rumours of Australia which may have reached the countries
of southern Asia, is a question which cannot be answered; but it has been
held with some show of reason that statements of Marco Polo, Varthema,
and other travellers, point to a knowledge that an extensive land did
lie to the south of the Malay Archipelago. It is an almost equally difficult
matter, and one which concerns our present subject more nearly, to decide
whether the indications of a continental land immediately to the south
of the Archipelago, to be found in maps of the sixteenth century, were
based at all on actual voyages of European navigators.

Heeres book on "The Part Borne by the Dutch..." was published in 1899
to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the establishment of
the Royal Geographical Society of the Netherlands. Heeres notes in the
introduction to the book that the object of publication was "once more
to throw the most decided and fullest possible light on achievements
of our forefathers in the 17th and 18th century, in a form that would
appeal to foreigners no less than to native readers. An act of homage
to our ancestors, therefore, a modest one certainly, but one inspired
by the same feeling which in 1892 led Italy and the Iberian Peninsula
to celebrate the memory of the discoverer of America, and in 1898 prompted
the Portuguese to do homage to the navigator who first showed the world
the sea-route to India."

Heeres work is now difficult to access and it is fitting that we are
now able, with the release of this ebook, to once more to "throw the
most decided and fullest possible light on achievements" of the Dutch
in commemorating the first authenticated landing on Australian soil
by Willem Janszoon.

...The roads were in a most awful state. The driver from
Penrith to Hartley said he had never seen them so bad. The ascent of the
Blue Mountains on the Penrith side was almost impassable. We went along
for four or five miles with the axle-tree buried in mud. I cannot think
how ever the horses did it at all.

We passed a carriage stuck in the mud, which two horses had not been able
to pull out, so they had been taken out and were standing by the side
of the road, while a gentleman, up to his knees in mud, and a stupid Irishman
were trying to fasten four bullocks to the carriage. Our coachman got
down and helped them, remarking that very likely we should want to be
dragged out soon. However, we managed to get along, and only came to grief
once. We went through the bush to avoid the sea of mud in the main road,
and one of the leaders got frightened and turned off among the trees,
dragging the coach against some saplings and nearly upsetting it. The
restive horse was taken out of the harness, and the passengers got out
while the coach was backed out of the scrape.

"The Outlaw" is the story of a convict turned
bushranger, set mainly in the Liverpool Ranges/Patrick's Plains/Maitland/Morpeth
area of New South Wales around 1840. It won second prize of £400
in a £1,000 novel competition.

It was agreed, at once, that more aid would be necessary,
before they could think of attacking the bush rangers; but all were ready
to join in the hunt for them. Therefore it was decided that Dick Shillito
and the two Watsons should each ride, at once, to neighbouring stations
to bring aid. At one of the stations two more policemen would be found,
and as in the pursuit they should probably pass near other stations, their
numbers would swell as they went. When this was settled, the party sat
down to the meal.

Even when it is admitted that the object of
the expedition was only achieved in part, that its scientific value was
further diminished by the compulsory abandonment of the hundreds of specimens
collected, and that its records are overshadowed by the death of two members
of the loyal little band of adventurers, there is still sufficient interest
left in the undertaking to justify this rescue of the bare details of
the story from the limbo of contemporary newspaper descriptions.

It was the lifelong wish of Mr. George Fife Angas, one of
the Fathers and Founders of South Australia, that a History of the Colony
of his adoption, and which he was mainly instrumental in establishing,
should be written. To this end he collected a vast number of documents
from all available sources, and for many years employed a secretary to
set them in order, hoping some day to write the History himself. But that
day never came, and in 1879 Mr. Angas passed away. Among his papers several
were found that showed how intensely keen his desire was that a full and
comprehensive History, giving the story of the rise and progress of the
colony, should be written. His son, the Hon. J.H. Angas, Member of the
Legislative Council of South Australia, determined that the wish should
be fulfilled, and kindly placed in my hands the whole of the valuable
and voluminous papers. Of this material I have availed myself freely,
and I have also drawn from Memoirs, Diaries, Travels, Parliamentary Debates,
as well as from the Colonial Newspapers. -- From The History of South
Australia.

We are now at the close of the first century of colonization
in Australia, and the time is therefore opportune for an estimate of the
influence exercised by the Irish element of the population on the remarkable
growth and development of the Greater Britain of the South. Having lived
in Australia from childhood, I have endeavored, not I hope without some
success, to present in this volume a faithful panorama of Irish life,
Irish history, and Irish achievements in the land I know and love so well.
J F Hogan, 1887.

Truth is said to be stranger than fiction, and certainly
the extraordinary murder which took place in Melbourne on Thursday night,
or rather Friday morning, goes a long way towards verifying this saying.
A crime has been committed by an unknown assassin, within a short distance
of the principal streets of this great city, and is surrounded by an inpenetrable
mystery.

In the course of the day, they again came by surprise upon
a body of natives, consisting of eight men; these appeared much alarmed,
and, on perceiving the bullocks, fled through a small creek, and concealed
themselves among the reeds on its banks. In the evening, about a mile
from the spot where they had been first seen, the natives again made their
appearance, and approached them with marks of friendship. One of these
men dressed in an old yellow jacket, spoke a few words of English, and
had been at Lake George. They had among them, one iron axe, and four tomahawks.--The
whole party remained with them till dark, when, except two of their number,
they all retired, promising to return in the morning.

A few days after my arrival with the transports in Port
Jackson, I set off with a six oared boat and a small boat, intending to
make as good a survey of the harbour as circumstances would admit: I took
to my assistance Mr. Bradley, the first lieutenant, Mr. Keltie, the master,
and a young gentleman of the quarter-deck. During the time we were employed
on this service, we had frequent meetings with different parties of the
natives, whom we found at this time very numerous; a circumstance which
I confess I was a little surprized to find, after what had been said of
them in the voyage of the Endeavour; for I think it is observed in the
account of that voyage, that at Botany-bay they had seen very few of the
natives, and that they appeared a very stupid race of people, who were
void of curiosity. We saw them in considerable numbers, and they appeared
to us to be a very lively and inquisitive race; they are a straight, thin,
but well made people, rather small in their limbs, but very active; they
examined with the greatest attention, and expressed the utmost astonishment,
at the different covering we had on; for they certainly considered our
cloaths as so many different skins, and the hat as a part of the head:
they were pleased with such trifles as we had to give them, and always
appeared chearful and in good humour: they danced and sung with us, and
imitated our words and motions, as we did theirs. They generally appeared
armed with a lance, and a short stick which assists in throwing it: this
stick is about three feet long, is flattened on one side, has a hook of
wood at one end, and a flat shell, let into a split in the stick at the
other end, and fastened with gum; upon the flat side of this stick the
lance is laid, in the upper end of which is a small hole, into which the
point of the hook of the throwing stick is fixed; this retains the lance
on the flat side of the stick; then poising the lance, thus fixed, in
one hand, with the fore-finger and thumb over it, to prevent its falling
off side-ways, at the same time holding fast the throwing-stick, they
discharge it with considerable force, and in a very good direction, to
the distance of about sixty or seventy yards*. Their lances are in general
about ten feet long: the shell at one end of the throwing-stick is intended
for sharpening the point of the lance, and for various other uses. I have
seen these weapons frequently thrown, and think that a man upon his guard
may with much ease, either parry, or avoid them, although it must be owned
they fly with astonishing velocity.

On this cruise there was an unusual piece of interest in
Kennedy's ill-fated expedition, which the "Rattlesnake" landed in Rockingham
Bay, and trusted to meet again at Cape York. Happy it was for Huxley that
his duties forbade him to accept Kennedy's proposal to join the expedition.
After months of weary struggles in the dense scrub, Kennedy himself, who
had pushed on for help with his faithful black man Jacky, was speared
by the natives when almost in sight of Cape York; Jack barely managed
to make his way there through his enemies, and guided a party to the rescue
of the two starved and exhausted survivors of the disease-stricken camp
by the Sugarloaf Hill. It was barely time. Another hour, and they too
would have been killed by the crowd of blackfellows who hovered about
in hopes of booty, and were only dispersed for a moment by the rescue
party.

The purpose of the
following pages is to lay before persons desirous of emigrating a short,
but impartial, statement of the condition of the colony of Western
Australia, commonly called the Swan River Settlement. The object of the
writer is not to exalt its advantages above those of other colonies. His
statements are put forward neither from motives of private interest, nor
to forward the views of any party or associated body whatever; and he
trusts that, however brief, his statement will be found throughout
essentially correct.

Had the nations outside of Spain and Portugal admitted the
validity of the bull, the greater part of Australia would have belonged
to Portugal, and a slice of the eastern coast, covering Sydney, Brisbane
and Rockhampton, would have been Spanish. By the treaty (which was a sort
of reciprocal Monroe doctrine), the western half of Australia would have
been Portuguese and the eastern half Spanish. (from Northmost Australia)

Narrative of the Overland Expedition of the Messrs Jardine, from
Rockhampton to Cape York, Northern Queensland. This ebook is available
from the Australian Explorers Journals
page.

The Settlement of Northern Australia has of late years been
of such rapid growth as to furnish matter for a collection of narratives,
which in the aggregate would make a large and interesting volume. Prominent
amongst these stands that of the Settlement of Cape York, under the superintendence
of Mr. Jardine, with which the gallant trip of his two sons overland must
ever be associated. It was a journey which, but for the character and
qualities of the Leader, might have terminated as disastrously as that
of his unfortunate, but no less gallant predecessor, Kennedy.

Bending her head of wavy, glossy black hair, the girl pressed
her lips softly upon the white man's hand, and raising her face again,
her eyes followed his, and as she noticed his intent look, a curious,
alarmed expression came into her own lustrous orbs.

No sane person would attempt to write a complete history
of Australasia in three hundred pages. Having, therefore, to make a selection,
I have fallen back upon the traditions of that school which regards history
as past politics, and politics as present history. Even with this limitation,
I have had to go lightly over the ground, omitting much that even I know,
and, doubtless, much more of which I am ignorant. I can boast no special
qualification for the task, save that I have spent three years in Australia,
living as an Australian amongst Australians; but I have not spared to
search the best sources of information.

I do not think it necessary to make an apology for putting
this Address into your hands; or to enter into a long detail of the reasons
which induced me to write it. One reason may suffice. I find I cannot
express my regard for you, so often, or so fully, as I wish, in any other
way. On our first arrival in this distant part of the world, and for some
time afterwards, our numbers were comparatively small; and while they
resided nearly upon one spot, I could not only preach to them on the Lord's
day, but also converse with them, and admonish them, more privately. But
since that period, we have gradually increased in number every year (notwithstanding
the great mortality we have sometimes known) by the multitudes that have
been sent hither after us.

As soon as I shot Lonigan he jumped up and staggered some
distance from the logs with his hands raised and then fell he surrendered
but too late I asked McIntyre who was in the tent he replied no one. I
advanced and took possession of their two revolvers and fowling-piece
which I loaded with bullets instead of shot. I asked McIntyre where his
mates was he said they had gone down the creek, and he did not expect
them that night he asked me was I going to shoot him and his mates. I
told him no.

A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Arranged
in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the Origin and
Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea and Land,
from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time.

This remarkable work, of 18 volumes, was published from
1811 to 1824. The contents of the individual volumes and links to the
ebooks will be found on the Voyages
and Travels page. The collection includes ebooks of the three voyages
of James Cook.

The principal object of your mission is to examine the hitherto
unexplored Coasts of New South Wales, from Arnhem Bay, near the western
entrance of the Gulf of Carpentaria, westward and southward as far as
the North-west Cape; including the opening, or deep bay called Van Diemen's
Bay, and the cluster of islands called Rosemary Islands, and the inlets
behind them, which should be most minutely examined; and, indeed, all
gulfs and openings should be the objects of particular attention; as the
chief motive for your survey is to discover whether there be any river
on that part of the coast likely to lead to an interior navigation into
this great continent.

Then what a to-do is there. The Vicar jumping about on the
grass, giving all sorts of contradictory advice. The Major, utterly despairing
of ever getting his fish ashore, fighting a losing battle with infinite
courage, determined that the trout shall remember him, at all events,
if he does get away. And the trout, furious and indignant, but not in
the least frightened, trying vainly to get back to the old root. Was there
ever such a fish?--Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn

[this] is the final result of an attempt on my part, early
in 1907, to write a magazine article dealing with the dangers to which
the neighbourhood of overcrowded Asia exposes the thinly populated Commonwealth
of Australia. At that time, my thoughts on the subject resembled those
of the Australian multitude: they were disconnected, and more in the shape
of a vague fear than defined clearly. However, when I began to work out
my problem, I soon recognized that it was too vast for intelligible compression
within the limits of an ordinary magazine contribution. I was quite convinced
of this when the central idea of the book occurred to me--the possibility
of a coloured invasion of Australian territory, organized on such lines
that the Australians would be unable to persuade the heart of the Empire
that there was any invasion.

When his apprenticeship had expired he went before the mast
for about three years. In 1750 he was in the Baltic trade on the Maria,
owned by Mr. John Wilkinson of Whitby, and commanded by Mr. Gaskin, a
relative of the Walkers. The following year he was in a Stockton ship,
and in 1752 he was appointed mate of Messrs. Walker's new vessel, the
Friendship, on board of which he continued for three years, and of which,
on the authority of Mr. Samwell, the surgeon of the Discovery on the third
voyage, who paid a visit to Whitby on his return and received his information
from the Walkers, he would have been given the command had he remained
longer in the mercantile marine. This was rapid promotion for a youth
with nothing to back him up but his own exertions and strict attention
to duty, and tends to prove that he had taken full advantage of the opportunities
that fell in his way, and had even then displayed a power of acquiring
knowledge of his profession beyond the average.

I am a scout; nature, inclination, and fate put me into
that branch of army service. In trying to tell Australia's story I have
of necessity enlarged on the work of the scouts, not because theirs is
more important than other branches of the service, nor they braver than
their comrades of other units. Nor do I want it to be thought that we
undergo greater danger than machine-gunners, grenadiers, light trench-mortar
men, or other specialists. But, frankly, I don't know much about any other
man's job but my own, and less than I ought to about that. To introduce
you to the spirit, action, and ideals of the Australian army I have to
intrude my own personality, and if in the following pages "what I did"
comes out rather strongly, please remember I am but "one of the boys,"
and have done not nearly as good work as ten thousand more.

In 1791 Labillardière was appointed as a naturalist
to Bruni d'Entrecasteaux's expedition to Oceania in search of the lost
ships of Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse. D'Entrecasteaux
failed to find any trace of the missing expedition, but his ships visited
southwest Australia, Tasmania, the North Island of New Zealand, and the
East Indies, where Labillardière, Claude Riche, Étienne
Pierre Ventenat assisted by gardener Félix Delahaye collected zoological,
botanical and geological specimens, and described the customs and languages
of the local Indigenous Australians.
--From Wikipedia

It was fortunate, however, that this first attempt to form
a settlement on Victorian soil did not succeed, for thus the Colony escaped
the evils as well as the stigma of a criminal origin. Ours, as other Colonies
might have done, came into existence and prosperity without the aid of
transportation, which, however beneficial it may at one time have appeared,
instead of accelerating, undoubtedly retarded the growth of Australia.

That it is the system and not THE MEN who are in fault, is sufficiently
proved by the fact that the most illustrious statesmen and the brightest
talents of the Age, have ever failed to distinguish themselves by good
works, whilst directing the fortunes of the Colonies. Lord John Russell,
Lord Stanley, Mr. Gladstone -- all of them high-minded, scrupulous,
and patriotic statesmen -- all of them men of brilliant genius, extensive
knowledge, and profound thought -- have all of them been but slightly
appreciated as Colonial rulers.

Their principal success has been in perpetuating a noxious system.
They have all of them conscientiously believed their first duty to be,
in the words of Lord Stanley, to keep the Colonies dependent upon the
Mother Country; and occupied with this belief, they have egislated for
the Mother Country and not for the Colonies. Vain, selfish, fear-inspired
policy! that keeps the Colonies down in the dust at the feet of the
Parent State, and yet is of no value or advantage to her. To make her
Colonies useful to England, they must be cherished in their infancy,
and carefully encouraged to put forth all the strength of their secret
energies.

Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria, in Search
of Burke and Wills, 1862. This ebook is available from the Australian Explorers Journals page.

The readers of this pamphlet are no doubt aware that the
anxiety entertained for the fate of Burke and Wills led to the formation
of several expeditions in their search. The first of these was formed
in Melbourne and entrusted to the command of Mr. Howitt. The second in
Adelaide, under Mr. McKinlay. The third from Rockhampton, under Mr. Walker;
and the fourth from Brisbane, under Mr. Landsborough. These several expeditions
were organised and started within a short period of each other. The steamship
Victoria, Commander Norman, was despatched by the Victorian Government
to the Gulf of Carpentaria to assist the explorers in carrying out their
objects.

Everybody has heard about 'Fisher's Ghost.' It is one of
the stock 'yarns' of the world, and reappears now and again in magazines,
books . . . and general conversation. As usually told, the story runs
thus: One Fisher, an Australian settler of unknown date, dwelling not
far from Sydney, disappeared. His overseer, like himself an ex-convict,
gave out that Fisher had returned to England, leaving him as plenipotentiary.
One evening a neighbour (one Farley), returning from market, saw Fisher
sitting on the fence of his paddock, walked up to speak to him, and marked
him leave the fence and retreat into the field, where he was lost to sight.
The neighbour reported Fisher's return, and, as Fisher could nowhere be
found, made a deposition before magistrates. A native tracker was taken
to the fence where the pseudo Fisher sat, discovered 'white man's blood'
on it, detected 'white man's fat' on the scum of a pool hard by, and,
finally, found 'white man's body' buried in a brake. The overseer was
tried, condemned, and hanged after confession.

GEORGE GILES was, on the whole, what used to be termed by
the masters of convict servants, a very good man; but on several occasions
he misbehaved, and as Captain Bellamy never looked over but one offence--namely,
the first--he was several times punished; that is to say, flogged. For
five years and some months he was with Captain Bellamy, and during that
period was seen by the captain every day.

"In a job like this," he said, "a man wants a mate--yes,
a mate--that he can say ANYTHING to, and be absolutely himself with. Must
have it. And as far as I go--for me--you don't mind if I say it, do you?--Kangaroo
could never have a mate. He's as odd as any phoenix bird I've ever heard
tell of. You couldn't mate him to anything in the heavens above or in
the earth beneath or in the waters under the earth. No, there's no female
kangaroo of his species. Fine chap, for all that. But as lonely as a nail
in a post."

'Run, Andy! run!' they shouted back at him. `Run!!! Look
behind you, you fool!' Andy turned slowly and looked, and there, close
behind him, was the retriever with the cartridge in his mouth -- wedged
into his broadest and silliest grin. And that wasn't all. The dog had
come round the fire to Andy, and the loose end of the fuse had trailed
and waggled over the burning sticks into the blaze; Andy had slit and
nicked the firing end of the fuse well, and now it was hissing and spitting
properly. From 'The Loaded Dog' (Joe Wilson and His Mates).

It is but seldom that a man foregoes ambitions, or changes
his life plans because he is a husband and a father. The circle of the
wedding ring spreading and broadening for him closes in about his wife,
bringing with it so many new duties and responsibilities that time and
hands are so full, except in a rare combination of circumstances, as to
leave her without either time or strength for the cultivation of talents
or the pursuing of such a line of thought as will render her companionable
to her husband. Whether bread and babies are pursuits lower or higher
than those that fall to the lot of the husband is a question not to be
decided here. But every woman in average circumstances who cannot with
the two, satisfy every longing of her soul will certainly find marriage
a failure. Unhappy Love Matches.

Taking handcuffs from his pocket, the constable clasped
them on Sam, and, shaking him till he was sufficiently aroused to stand,
bade him, with a fierce kick, walk on whilst he and Bob carried Giles
to the barracks. At that moment the bell rang, and, from every part of
the town, road and building parties were seen returning to their quarters.

The objects for which the Lady Nelson's voyages were undertaken render
her logbooks of more than ordinary interest. She was essentially an
Australian discovery ship and during her successive commissions she
was employed exclusively in Australian waters. The number of voyages
that she made will perhaps never be accurately known, but her logbooks
in existence testify to the important missions that she accomplished.
The most notable are those which record early discoveries in Victoria:
the exploration of the Queensland coast: the surveys of King Island
and the Kent Group: the visits to New Zealand and the founding of settlements
at Hobart, Port Dalrymple, and Melville Island. Seldom can the logbooks
of a single ship show such a record.

The natives returned very early to our camp. I went up to
them and made them some presents; in return for which they offered me
bunches of goose feathers, and the roasted leg of a goose, which they
were pleased to see me eat with a voracious appetite. I asked for Allamurr,
and they expressed themselves sorry in not having any left, and gave us
to understand that they would supply us, if we would stay a day. Neither
these natives nor the tribe of Eooanberry would touch our green hide or
meat: they took it, but could not overcome their repugnance, and tried
to drop it without being seen by us. Poor fellows! they did not know how
gladly we should have received it back! They were the stoutest and fattest
men we had met.

Now, standing in the middle of the harbour is a rock, on
which is built a fort, known as Fort Dennison (sic), or more commonly
Pinchgut, owing to the starvation diet on which the convicts were kept
whilst confined in the fort. Mounted on this fort is a huge gun, that
covers the whole of the harbour. We were coming off with a light breeze,
clad in our white ducks, thoroughly enjoying life, and went to pass windward
of the fort. The boat did not seem inclined to lie up to it, and as it
was of no consequence whatever, we ran close under the lee. One of the
boys, Watson by name, lying on his back along one of the thwarts and looking
up as we passed close under the fort, noticed the projecting muzzle of
this huge gun. What a lark, he blurted out, to fire that gun some night.
Wouldn't it shake 'em up? I looked up, and as they say in Yankeeland,
fell for it. It was a proposition that appealed. So, with each one sworn
to secrecy, we set about what proved to be a task that took over six weeks
to accomplish, but it was worth it. First, there was the powder to get,
and, to avoid suspicion, it had to be obtained in very small quantities.
There was fuse to get also, but before we committed ourselves very deeply,
bearing in mind our very limited exchequer, it behoved us to go off some
night and reconnoiter, and find out what sort of gun it was, and if it
could be fired. For this purpose we commandeered a scow from Cavill's
Baths that lie off the Domain....

Queen Victoria's Spring was reached on the twenty-fifth
day at a distance of 393 miles from Mount Squires, and found to be dry.
Our position now was somewhat critical, for the camels had been twenty-five
days without water and were not only thirsty, but leg-weary. To go north
back into the desert was not possible, and the only safe course to take
was to make for the nearest certain water, which, after consulting the
map, was found to be at Fraser Range, 125 miles distant. It was questionable
whether the camels would travel another week without water. A well was
sunk 15ft. deep and 60 gallons of water obtained, to which we added 40
gallons out of the casks, enabling the camels to have 2 1/2 galls. each.

"And I--when I have sunk my last pot, when my foot no more
rests on the rail, and old Time calls, 'Six o'clock, sir!' then carry
me to the strains of the Little Brown jug and lay me on my bier. . .'And
in a winding-sheet of vine-leaf wrapt, so bury me by some sweet gardenside.'
Till then. . .Here's luck!"

For nearly half a century Sir Henry Parkes was a conspicuous
figure in Australian public life, and, for much of that period, by far
the most prominent. By very many people he was regarded as Australia's
greatest statesman. Primarily the labours of his long career were for
the advancement of New South Wales, the colony in which his lot was more
directly cast; but many of his public acts have had a beneficial influence
upon the Australasian colonies as a whole, and, in benefiting Australasia,
he assisted the progress of the British Empire. Throughout his life he
was loyal to the mother land. While faithful to the country of his adoption,
he ever remembered that "the crimson thread of kinship runs through
us all", and, foremost in the movement for Australian federation,
the union he sought was a "union under the Crown."

"Grace, my dear, I think that you acted unwisely, very
unwisely, in leaving 'Looranna,' when old Lawyer Graham entreated you to
remain, and something tells me that he had some ulterior motive for so
urging."

The speaker is Mrs. Carrington, a dignified, elderly lady,
who in her youth must have been very beautiful, for even now, after the
ravages of time, her face bears strong traces of early loveliness. Over
her kind features one can easily discern the imprint of a deep and recent
sorrow. She is addressing her niece, Grace Moore, a tall, beautiful girl,
who is seated on a low stool by her side. The girl does not answer, but
remains silent and thoughtful.

Dr. Arabin was determined to reach the place, and, no longer
afraid of the water, he spurred his horse down a frightful descent. When
he had reached the bottom of the ravine, he could perceive the flicker
of a light at some distance amongst the trees. He shouted again to the
hut, to ask if it was safe to come on.

These people appeared to repose the most perfect confidence
in us--they repeatedly visited the ship in their own canoes or the watering-boats,
and were always well treated; nor did any circumstance occur during our
intimacy to give either party cause of complaint. We saw few weapons among
them. The islanders had their bows and arrows, and the others their spears
and throwing-sticks. As the weather was fine, at least as regarded the
absence of rain, no huts of any kind were constructed; at night the natives
slept round their fires without any covering. During our stay the food
of the natives consisted chiefly of two kinds of fruit, the first (a Wallrothia)
like a large yellow plum, mealy and insipid; the second, the produce of
a kind of mangrove (Candelia) the vegetating sprouts of which are prepared
for food by a process between baking and steaming. At low-water the women
usually dispersed in search of shellfish on the mudflats and among the
mangroves, and the men occasionally went out to fish, either with the
spear, or the hook and line.

McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia
(Burke Relief Expedition). This ebook is available from the Australian Explorers Journals page.

At first blush of dawn wind from same quarter (east-south-east).
Rained heavily all night and to my astonishment, instead of the creek
rising as usual (three and a half inches per hour) it was now rising five
and a half inches and hourly increasing. Although the creek has in many
places overflown its banks, and consequently a much broader channel, we
are completely surrounded with at least five feet of water in the shallowest
place that we can escape from this by. After a breakfast by daybreak the
animals are immediately sent for and, as the men start for them, drive
before them our sheep for more than half a mile through a strong current,
and swimming three-fourths of the time; they went over splendidly and
were left on a piece of dry land until our camels and horses came and
removed the stores etc., which fortunately they did with not very many
of the things getting wet. The camels being brought in and loaded and
out to where the sheep were first, I had two of them unloaded and sent
back to carry to the dry ground any of the perishable articles such as
ammunition, flour, tea, and sugar, which they brought in safety; for had
it been put on the horses as usual, and not being able to keep them on
our track, the probability is they would have to swim and completely destroy
the ammunition and injure the other stores; the camels acted famously
and from their great height were as good as if we had been supplied with
boats.

Then one day I came again to Thursday Island, the place of pearls and
pearl-shell which sits astride the strait that makes of New Guinea and
Australia two separate lands, and encountered a man with a proposal
which suited me exactly. It was that we should establish a coconut plantation
at Cape York--that is to say, at Australia's uttermost north, the apex
of that tremendous and almost completely unknown peninsula which, after
half a thousand miles of paralleling the mighty Barrier Reef, thrusts
up amid the islands of Torres Strait and towards New Guinea like a pointing
finger.

On looking over some old papers lately, I came across a
journal of mine written upwards of thirty years ago, giving an account
of the many difficulties and dangers which I experienced in taking up
the now well-known pastoral station of Mount Abundance, in the colony
of Queensland; and in the hope of its having sufficient interest to merit
publication, I have compiled from this old diary the following narrative.

On emigration, Mrs. Chisholm has produced, by indomitable
perseverance, a deep impression, the results of which will long be acknowledged,
as it has given life, energy, and moral character to an important and
rising colony. She found the stream polluted, and she has purified it.
The weak she has protected, and the poor she has sheltered tenderly and
affectionately. With a woman's courage and resolution she has asserted
the dignity of her sex, and caused the unscrupulous voluptuary to shrink
appalled, and respect nature's loveliest creation, although in want and
in rags. The chances, perils, and difficulties of a new far off home she
has reduced; the outset rendered more independent, the voyage one of health,
industry and protection, the reception kind and secure, and the future
prospects of life one of earthly happiness.

As soon as I felt at all equal for any exertion I was anxious
to see a little more of our bush home. Accordingly, on the evening of
the day after our arrival I got up and took a short ramble of discovery
about the cottage and garden, extending my walk to the banks of the river.
On the whole, I was much pleased with the result of my observations.
Our station, as I have before mentioned, was situated in a beautiful valley,
surrounded by high hills lightly wooded to the very summits.

When, at a period comparatively recent in the world's history,
the discovery was made that, on the face of the as yet unmeasured ocean,
there existed a western continent which rivalled in extent the world already
known, it became a subject of natural enquiry whether a fact of such momentous
importance could for so many thousands of years have remained a secret.
Nor was the enquiry entirely without response. Amid the obscurity of the
past some faint foreshadowings of the great reality appeared to be traceable.
The poet with his prophecy, the sage with his mystic lore, and the unlettered
seaman who, with curious eye, had peered into the mysteries of the far-stretching
Atlantic, had each, as it now appeared enunciated a problem which at length
had met with its solution.

Since the destruction of this building, [a play-house] the
sources of amusement have been confined to cricket, cards, water-parties,
shooting, fishing, hunting the kangaroo, etc. or any other pleasures which
can be derived from society where no public place is open for recreations
of any description. The officers of the colony have also built a private
billiard-room, by subscription, for their own use; and if these amusements
possess not that degree of attraction which is attached to dramatic representations,
they cannot, on the other hand, be liable to those abuses, and produce
those injurious consequences, which previously existed.

War is waged by men; not by beasts, or by gods. It is a
peculiarly human activity. To call it a crime against mankind is to miss
at least half its significance; it is also the punishment of a crime.
That raises a moral question, the kind of problem with which the present
age is disinclined to deal. Perhaps some future attempt to provide a solution
for it may prove to be even more astonishing than the last.

It is certainly 'a far cry' from the Antipodes to England
and back again. Yet in the name of my Australian sisters who have contributed
to this little volume, I venture to express a hope that our 'Coo-ee' may
succeed in making itself heard on either shore, and that its echoes may
linger pleasantly around the Bush Station and by the English fireside.

Opposite the south shore of the Domain, and forming the other boundary
of a beautiful cove, is another similar point or promontory, called
still by the native name of Wooloomooloo (the accent being on the first
and last syllables), on which a number of elegant villas have been
erected by the more wealthy residents in Sydney, being to that place
what the Regent's Park is to London. The views from many of these are
beautiful in the extreme, looking down into two bays, one on either
side, and beyond these to the town and port, with the magnificent heads
of the harbour closing the seaward prospect.

Owing to her many engagements in other countries, Melba's house in Paris
was at this time little more than a pied-a-terre for her; but she
always made a point of being there during the holidays of her little
son, who was at school in England, and whose home-comings were the
brightest light in these days of ever-growing brilliancy. Every detail
that could add to his wellbeing and increase his none too abundant
physical vigour was the mother's constant care. No matter what the storm
or stress of her professional life, no want of the little lad was too
trifling for her attention. Pictures of the boy in every pose
accompanied her on all her expeditions, and the fortune that had come so
readily to her was doubly prized because of all it would mean in the
future to her idolized only child.

To understand Socialism is to endeavour to lead a better
life, to regret the vileness of our present ways, to seek ill for none,
to desire truth and purity and honesty, to despise this selfish civilisation
and to comprehend what living might be. Understanding Socialism will not
make people at once what men and women should be but it will fill them
with hatred for the unfitting surroundings that damn us all and with passionate
love for the ideals that are lifting us upwards and with an earnest endeavour
to be themselves somewhat as they feel humanity is struggling to be. From
the Preface to The Workingmans' Paradise.

It was about a young wife--the most innocent of brides,
who thought the world of her husband, and had no wish or look for other
men. Yet the house was full of other men in those days, and they all gave
thoughts or looks, more or less, to the prettiest woman in the district.
Every evening she used to stand at her bedroom door, looking along the
verandah, until she saw her husband returning from his work; and every
evening he brought her a rose from the big bush by the steps. That was
during the first months of her marriage. Next year, the rose-bush bore
as abundantly as ever, but the man often forgot to pick a flower for her;
and, after a time, he forgot altogether.

I...began to examine the work of that extremely able group
of men who had...developed theories of colonization, with special reference
to Australia, and had succeeded in putting into practice, though imperfectly,
many of their theories, of which responsible government for colonies was
one. The leader of this group was Edward Gibbon Wakefield, whose name
is familiar to every student of land settlement in Australia. On examining
the great mass of literature, expository and controversial, which surrounds
his theory, I could find no book which seemed to do justice to Wakefield's
achievements in colonization and colonial policy. Much of what has been
written is polemical in character, and many
of the works contemporary with Wakefield are spoilt by an obvious bias
for or against him. Writings which were not guilty of these defects were
for other reasons inadequate.--Preface to The Colonisation of Australia,
1829-1942.

The same attraction which drew the greatest of discoverers
westward. . .seemed to invite the Australian explorer northward; impelled
by the wayward fortunes of the Anglo-Saxon race already rooted at the
southern extremity of the land whose name had previously been "Terra Australis
incognita." The character of the interior of that country still remained
unknown, the largest portion of earth as yet unexplored. For the mere
exploration, the colonists of New South Wales might not have been very
anxious just at that time, but when the object of acquiring geographical
knowledge could be combined with that of exploring a route towards the
nearest part of the Indian Ocean, westward of a dangerous strait, it was
easy to awaken the attention of the Australian public to the importance
of such an enterprise. A trade in horses required to remount the Indian
cavalry had commenced, and the disadvantageous navigation of Torres Straits
had been injurious to it: that drawback was to be avoided by any overland
route from Sydney to the head of the Gulf of Carpentaria. From Journal
of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia.

On this day of destiny he was in a particularly bad temper. He had been
detached with his company to take charge of the new settlement at
Moreton Bay in the remotest corner of his Majesty's dominions. He was a
man of somewhat more than middle height, slender as a rapier is slender,
of a steely, supple strength. Mounted on a hunter that he had ridden
far, for his jack-boots were splashed with mud and his steel spurs
blood-stained, he looked every inch a cavalry man rather than a foot
soldier. His keen black eyes were upon the figure of Mary Worthington,
as she rode ahead of him, and he hastened to overtake her. But she,
disliking the appearance of him from the quick short glance she gave
him, stopped at a wayside farriers with the pretence of having her
horse's shoes looked over, and the man rode on into Tavistock.

The following pages, of which I began the compilation when
still engaged in the arduous work of Repatriation of the Australian troops
in all theatres of war, were intended to be something in the nature of
a consecutive and comprehensive story of the Australian Imperial Force
in France during the closing phases of the Great War. I soon found that
the time at my disposal was far too limited to allow me to make full use
of the very voluminous documentary material which I had collected during
the campaign. The realization of such a project must await a time of greater
leisure. So much as I have had the opportunity of setting down has, therefore,
inevitably taken the form rather of an individual memoir of this stirring
period. While I feel obliged to ask the indulgence of the reader for the
personal character of the present narrative, this may not be altogether
a disadvantage. Having regard to the responsibilities which it fell to
my lot to bear, it may, indeed, be desirable that I should in all candour
set down what was passing in my mind, and should attempt to describe the
ever-changing external circumstances which operated to guide and form
the judgments and decisions which it became my duty to make from day to
day.

...the opinion very generally prevailed that the Island
of Santo, the chief island of the New Hebrides, was the Great Land discovered
by De Quiros. In the History of the Catholic Church in Australia
I ventured to dissent from that opinion, and since then several papers
bearing on the subject have appeared in the public press and in the Proceedings
of the Geographical Society of Melbourne.

Stonewall , v. intr.
(1) A Parliamentary term: to make use of the forms of the House so as
to delay public business.
(2) To obstruct business at any meeting, chiefly by long-winded speeches.
(3) To play a slow game at cricket, blocking balls rather than making
runs.

1876. 'Victorian Hansard,' Jan., vol. xxii. p. 1387:

"Mr. G. Paton Smith wished to ask the honourable member for Geelong
West whether the six members sitting beside him (Mr. Berry) constituted
the 'stone wall' that had been spoken of? Did they constitute the stone
wall which was to oppose all progress--to prevent the finances being
dealt with and the business of the country carried on? It was like bully
Bottom's stone wall. It certainly could not be a very high wall, nor
a very long wall, if it only consisted of six."

1884. G. W. Rusden, 'History of Australia,' vol. iii. p. 405:

"Abusing the heroic words of Stonewall Jackson, the Opposition
applied to themselves the epithet made famous by the gallant Confederate
General."

In the first week of February, 1894, I returned to Shanghai
from Japan. It was my intention to go up the Yangtse River as far as Chungking,
and then, dressed as a Chinese, to cross quietly over Western China, the
Chinese Shan States, and Kachin Hills to the frontier of Burma. The ensuing
narrative will tell how easily and pleasantly this journey, which a few
years ago would have been regarded as a formidable undertaking, can now
be done.

...although changes are rapidly taking place in these young
communities, yet we are confident that the traveller, with our book in
his hand, some ten or even twenty years hence, will easily recognise the
various cities, towns, districts, and estates herein described, however
greatly they may have increased in extent and population; and we flatter
ourselves that the tenour of our remarks on the social and political
condition of the people are based upon those sound principles of human
nature which will apply for all time. So that the intending colonist,
who may be guided by our statements in his selection of a spot for his
future labours, will find that we have neither exaggerated nor
misrepresented the country or the inhabitants of any one locality.

The full title of this book is The Felonry of New South Wales, being
a Faithful Picture of the Real Romance of Life in Botany Bay with Anecdotes
of Botany Bay Society. Mudie's entry in the Australian Dictionary
of Biography describes the book as "an attack on all whom he
fancied had opposed him in the colony. He also appeared before the select
committee on transportation; though much of his evidence was removed
from the report, enough remains to reveal his distorted mind. In 1840
Mudie returned to Sydney [he had gone to London before publication of
the book], where he found himself no longer welcome, for his vindictive
comments had lost him old friends. John Kinchela, son of the judge who
had been maligned in the book, publicly horsewhipped Mudie in Sydney,
and, when Mudie sued him, the £50 damages imposed on Kinchela
were promptly paid by a subscription in the court. In 1842 Mudie returned
to London, where he lived until his death on 21 May 1852 at Tottenham."
(http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mudie-james-2487)

It is unnecessary to enlarge upon the events which crowded
the remainder of the week. How Friday evening brought tidings that the
enemy were bearing down upon the Heads, and how the fleet went off to
engage them. How the land forces hurried off to the same quarter. How
on Saturday it came out that the threatened attack on the Heads was only
a feint after all, and that the main portion of the expedition had effected
a landing at Westernport, and were strongly entrenched near Hastings,
and how the troops were hurried back to Melbourne, and then on to Mordialloc
to intercept the enemy's march. All this is matter of history, and need
not be detailed here.

Although this work fully deals with all the many matters
connected with the art of living in Australia, its principal object is
the attempt to bring about some improvement in the extraordinary food-habits
at present in vogue. For years past the fact that our people live in direct
opposition to their semi-tropical environment has been constantly before
me. As it will be found in the opening portion of the chapter on School
Cookery, the consumption of butcher's meat and of tea is enormously in
excess of any common se nse requirements, and is paralleled nowhere else
in the world.

Coogee is a small place with a big House belonging to the
Cardinal, a large number of provision shops and--the Ocean Beach, a sandy
shore where we sat and watched the sea as long as we dared. We then patronized
the Chief industry of the place (viz, the providing of teas), & just
caught our steamer back nicely. We were very happy, sitting in the half
darkness, watching the numberless lights reflected in the water, especially
so, as the next day we would really be off and near the end of our long
journey.

The Professor was of that peculiar craft which flourished
so much during the earlier centuries, and has more or less flourished
ever since under various disguises. He belonged to the tribe of the witch
of Endor, that profession of seers and fore-tellers whom King Saul tried
to put down in his vigorous and virtuous years, and afterwards weakly
consulted in his decline; the same craft which that modern Solomon, King
James I. of England, so rigorously hunted to death, and which might have
died naturally only for the efforts of the Pschychological Society, and
that able editor of Border-land, the discoverer of the fourth dimension.

Charles NORDHOFF (1887-1947) andJames Norman HALL (1887-1951)

The Bounty Trilogy (Wyeth
Edition, 1945)Comprising the Three Volumes:
Mutiny on the Bounty (1932)
Men Against the Sea (1933)
Pitcairn's Island (1934)

On the twenty-third of December, 1787, His Majesty's armed
transport Bounty sailed from Portsmouth on as strange, eventful,
and tragic a voyage as ever befell an English ship. Her errand was to
proceed to the island of Tahiti (or Otaheite, as it was then called),
in the Great South Sea, there to collect a cargo of young breadfruit trees
for transportation to the West Indies, where, it was hoped, the trees
would thrive and thus, eventually, provide an abundance of cheap food
for the negro slaves of the English planters.
The events of that voyage it is the purpose of this tale to unfold. Mutiny
on the Bounty, which opens the story, is concerned with the voyage
from England, the long Tahiti sojourn while the cargo of young breadfruit
trees was being assembled, the departure of the homeward-bound ship, the
mutiny, and the fate of those of her company who later returned to Tahiti,
where the greater part of them were eventually seized by H. M. S. Pandora
and taken back to England, in irons, for trial.

"It is not intended that this volume, which was almost
finished for publication by my Mother before she died in England in 1911,
should be taken as a life of John Macarthur of Camden. Its object is rather
to place finally on record an authentic account of John Macarthur's connection
with the introduction of Fine Wool into Australia, and of the keen interest
he took in that industry and in all that concerned the welfare of the
infant colony which he had adopted as his home. It has been compiled chiefly
from letters and authenticated copies of letters found at Camden Park,
and from MS. notes left by James and William, the sons of John Macarthur.
All of these papers have been literally reproduced throughout; but other
papers have been used and books quoted, when necessary, to link up the
original materials into a connected history."

This work includes extracts from Historical Records of
Australia, Historical Records of New South Wales, History
of New South Wales From its First Discovery to the Present Time (1811),
by G. Paterson, and Proceedings of a General Court-Martial (1811)
relating to Col. George Johnston. It includes biographical details of
the main Protagonists, William Bligh, George Johnston and John Macarthur,
together with details of the mutiny and trial.

. . .we passed over an excellent and rich country; alternately
thick brush and clear forest, with small streams of water for near four
miles more, when, to our great joy and satisfaction, we arrived on the
sea-shore about half a mile from the entrance of what we saw (with no
small pleasure), formed a port to the river which we had been tracing
from Sea View Mount. Thus, after twelve weeks travelling over a country
exceeding three hundred and fifty miles, in a direct line from the Macquarie
River, without a single serious fatality, we had the gratification to
find that neither our time nor our exertions had been uselessly bestowed;
and we trusted that the limited examination, which our means would allow
us to make of the entrance of this port, would ultimately throw open the
whole interior to the Macquarie River, for the benefit of British settlers.
We pitched our tent upon a beautiful point of land, having plenty of good
water and grass; and commanding a fine view of the interior of the port
and surrounding country.

The writer came to Queensland two years before separation,
and shortly afterwards took part in the work of outside settlement, or
pioneering, looking for new country to settle on with stock. Going from
Bowen out west towards the head oi the Flinders River in 1864, he continued
his connection with this outside life until his death in 1899. Many of
the original explorers and pioneers were known to him personally; of these
but few remain. This little work is merely a statement of facts and incidents
connected with the work of frontier life, and the progress of pastoral
occupation in the early days.

Oolah the lizard was tired of lying in the sun, doing nothing.
So he said, "I will go and play." He took his boomerangs out, and began
to practise throwing them. While he was doing so a Galah came up, and
stood near, watching the boomerangs come flying back, for the kind of
boomerangs Oolah was throwing were the bubberahs. They are smaller than
others, and more curved, and when they are properly thrown they return
to the thrower, which other boomerangs do not. From 'Australian Legendary
Tales' (The galah, and Oolah the lizard).

It was not such a simple procedure as they had imagined. There were
certainly plenty of farms but these were either too small or too large,
too remote from civilisation, or too expensive. At last, however, they
succeeded in finding something which they thought would fit their needs.
Situated in a fruit-growing district in the heart of mountainous country
about 120 miles from Melbourne, the property had come on the market
owing to the death of the owner, whose heir was disinclined to continue
working the place, and was prepared to lease it with an option to
purchase at the end of six months. They made hurried preparations for
departure. Furniture had to be sold, suitable clothing bought and
numerous articles for kitchen and household use, which had not been
necessary in a flat, but which they considered would be essential for
the country. The boys proved but broken reeds. Their heads in the
clouds, their pockets stuffed with literature supplied by a benevolent
if somewhat indiscriminate Government bureau.

When they reached the mountain's summit, even Clancy took
a pull.
It well might make the boldest hold their breath;
The wild hop scrub grew thickly, and the hidden ground was full
Of wombat holes, and any slip was death.From 'The Man from Snowy River'

Time was when the story-teller was an honoured man, when
he dressed for his part, when the young people were educated in the lore
of the land and the law of the land, by means of legend. But there is
so much white blood in the people that practically none wish to bear the
stories of the "Alcheringa," and so the stories have faded. But not all.

The day Dot had lost her way she had been threading beads,
and she still had upon her finger a ring of the pretty coloured pieces
of glass. She saw the old Satin Bird look at this ring longingly, so she
pulled it off, and begged that it might be added to the other decorations.
It was instantly given the place of honour--over the entrance and above
the piece of milk tin.

Orchids are usually termed the aristocrats of plant life.
The presence of over 130 species in Western Australia adds considerable
interest to the study of her magnificent and world-famous flora.

West Australian orchids, which are practically all terrestrial, cannot
be compared to some found in Brazil, the Malay States, India, and other
tropical places, for size, vividness of colour, and bizarre marking.
But their delicate tints, dainty fragility of form, the curious structure
of many of the species, and their methods of fertilisation, constitute
beauty that endears them to young and old, and characteristics that
fascinate the botanist.

Cabell frowned at the table. He knew that McGovern was weaving a web
round him, but how and where he did not know. McGovern's face, at once
lazily cheerful and slyly calculating, told him nothing. He fidgeted
with the meat-knife for a second or two, then dug it deep into the table.
Words impatiently escaped him again. "You must be a monster, an absolute
maniac, if you haven't got some purpose treating him like that." He
brushed the hair out of his eyes with a gesture of helplessness. "Nobody
could be so brutal, not even in this country."
"Ah!" McGovern rose and stretched himself, smiled ironically.

Of the five zoologists appointed by the government, two
remained in the Isle of France: two others who were taken ill at Timor,
died through the fatigues of the second campaign, before they were able
to reach, as it were, the shores which they were to explore. M. PERON
being, therefore, the only one of his colleagues who was left, redoubled
his zeal and activity. M. LESUEUR joined his efforts with those of his
friend, and by the exertions of both, was prepared the valuable zoological
collection which we now possess. More than one hundred thousand specimens
of animals, large and small, are contained in it; amongst which are several
important genera. There are also many more to be described, and the number
of new species, according to the report of the professors of the museum,
is upwards of two thousand five hundred. Thus by referring to the amount
of those discovered by COOK, in his second voyage; as well as CARTERET,
WALLIS, FURNEAUX, MEARS, and even VANCOUVER, we shall find that Messrs.
PERON and LESUEUR alone, have discovered more new animals than all the
naturalist voyagers of our times.

The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay--This
is an account of the voyage of the First Fleet, which sailed from England
in 1787 and arrived in New South Wales on 26 January, 1788. This date
is now commemorated as Australia Day. Arthur Phillip was the first Governor
of the new colony.

On the 24th of the same month, being in the latitude of
42 degrees 25 minutes south, and in the longitude of 163 degrees 50 minutes,
I discovered land, which lay east-south-east at the distance of ten miles,
which I called Van Diemen's Land. The compass pointed right towards this
land. The weather being bad, I steered south and by east along the coast,
to the height of 44 degrees south, where the land runs away east, and
afterwards north-east and by north. In the latitude of 43 degrees 10 minutes
south, and in the longitude of 167 degrees 55 minutes, I anchored on the
1st of December, in a bay, which I called the Bay of Frederic Henry. I
heard, or at least fancied I heard, the sound of people upon the shore;
but I saw nobody. From 'The Voyage of Francis Pelsart'

...A long account followed of the bride's family connections,
in which the biographer touched upon the accident of sex that had deprived
her of the hereditary honours; the ancient descent of the Gavericks, with
a picture of the old Irish castle where Lady Bridget had been brought
up--and so forth, and so forth. Mrs Gildea sighed as she read, and pictured
in her imagination the wild wastes of the Never-Never Land and the rough
head-station which was to be Lady Bridget's home.

No man now living can either authenticate or authoritatively
dispute the claim put forward in these memoirs. Did Daniel Kelly survive
the Glenrowan tragedy, and was he actually saved, as is related by his
brother? It is not my place to venture an opinion. Curious readers must
answer the question for themselves... [From Dan Kelly Outlaw]

The Australian Aborigines constitute one of the most unique
primitive races that have come out of the past into our modern times and
they are probably the oldest living race. We are particularly concerned
with those qualities that have made possible their survival and cultural
development.

"If I only think what it would be like to be fixed up and
settled, and able to live in peace, without this eternal dragging two
ways . . . just as if I was being torn in half. And see Mother smiling
and happy again, like she used to be. Between the two of you I'm nothing
but a punch-ball. Oh, I'm fed up with it! . . . fed up to the neck. As
for you . . . And yet you can sit there as if you were made of stone!
Why don't you SAY something? BETTY! Why won't you speak?" From 'Two
Hanged Women'.

The clerk who lives out his life in the rabbit-warren of
the city of London by day, and in a cheap, pretentious, red-brick suburb
by night, believes firmly that outside London not much matters. He lumps
together the Canadian, the South African, the Australian, and the New
Zealander under the slighting category of "colonials." He imagines them
bowing themselves humbly before the majesty of the Londoner, taking their
cues from London and reverencing it as the fount of all wisdom and might
and wealth.

...He saw at last that this coat and his high hat alone
were insufficient for civilisation. For full dress in a corroboree it
might do. Unconsciously, he was so wrought upon by the purpose for which
the coat had been built that he determined to reserve it for parties in
the seclusion of the bush, where any merriment could be rightly checked
by a crack from his waddy. He planted it carefully in a hollow log, and,
having inserted himself with as much care into his discarded rags, he
wondered off into the town. He got very intoxicated that night, and determined
to have a party all by himself.

Our horses having now been two days without water, and eating
but sparingly for want of it, I became anxious to obtain a supply for
them, and fortunately succeeded next morning by digging in a small water-course
we had followed down to the eastward. Here their pressing thirst was in
a slight degree alleviated by ½ a bucket each of a red liquid,
which was, nevertheless, fresh, and before the heat of the day came on
we fortunately found an abundant supply of good water, in small pools
in the midst of thickets and scrub, where little expected. The rush of
the poor horses to it was so sudden and uncontrollable that they were
all in the midst of the pool in an instant; and two of them carrying heavy
loads were with difficulty unloaded and got out again. By this time we
had passed to the S. side of the range, and found a continuation of the
fresh pools in a water-course which descended from its south-eastern slopes;
there was, however, a total absence of grass at this time, although there
was reason to believe some good grass had covered the hill-sides previous
to the last fires, which had swept all minor vegetation away, and left
standing only that close thicket and scrub we heartily wished had shared
the same fate.

This work is notworthy for its account of, probably, only
the second visit to Van Diemen's Land by Europeans. Julien-Marie Crozet
captained their ship after the murder of Marc-Joseph (not Nicholas Thomas)
Marion Dufresne in New Zealand. Appendix III contains a brief reference
to the literature of New Zealand. (ebook editor.)

The increasing difficulty of maintaining a family in England,
in which the competition for mere subsistence has become so keen; and
the still greater difficulty of providing for children when their maturer
years render it imperative on the parent to seek for some profession or
calling on which they may rely for their future support, has excited among
all classes a strong attention towards the colonies of Great Britain,
where fertile and unclaimed lands, almost boundless in extent, await only
the labour of man to produce all that man requires.

Our selection adjoined a sheep-run on the Darling Downs,
and boasted of few and scant improvements, though things had gradually
got a little better than when we started. A verandahless four-roomed slab-hut
now standing out from a forest of box-trees, a stock-yard, and six acres
under barley were the only evidence of settlement. A few horses--not ours--sometimes
grazed about; and occasionally a mob of cattle--also not ours--cows with
young calves, steers, and an old bull or two, would stroll around, chew
the best legs of any trousers that might be hanging on the log reserved
as a clothes-line, then leave in the night and be seen no more for months--some
of them never. From On Our Selection.

An account of the first exploring journeys to and over Darling
Downs: the earliest days of their occupation; social life; station seeking;
the course of discovery, northward and westward; and a resumé of
the causes which led to separation from new south wales. with portrait
and fac-similes of maps, log, &c., &c.

"New Holland," he [Dampier] says, "is a very large tract of land. It is
not yet determined whether it is an island or a main continent; but I am
certain that it joyns neither to Africa, Asia, or America." Why he is
certain he does not tell us, but he is too sagacious to err, though
whilst he thus thinks, all that he sees of the vast territory is "low
land with sandy banks against the sea." He devotes several pages to
descriptions of the natives, telling us that they have no houses, that
they go armed with a piece of wood shaped like a cutlass, that their
speech is guttural, that in consequence of the flies which tease and
sting their faces, they keep their eyelids half closed; and so forth.

The captain's eyes ranging swiftly round the room, fell
on Tristram standing up to his full height with his eyes blazing out under
the dark mark on his white forehead, and with a fearful gash across his
cheekbone. Black-eyed Poll stood before him, clinging to his arm. At the
feet of the pair of them lay the motionless body of Jim the Sealer, with
Kitty sobbing wildly over him. A Bush Bayad.

Five and twenty years ago, New South Wales was not, what
it has since become, an important English Colony, but partook more of
the nature of a mere penal settlement for the reception of offenders,
transported from the Mother Country, and was under a form of Government,
precisely in keeping with this character. Still, some of the properties
belonging to it, and which have subsequently served to exalt it to its
present station, were known and appreciated; and scarcely was the anchor
cast, than Quintus availed himself of every opportunity that the intercourse
with the shore permitted, towards acquainting himself with such particulars,
as he fancied might help to give a direction to his future movements.

All Sydney people, and most of those who have visited the
city, have seen the tall monument to Laperouse overlooking Botany Bay.
Many have perhaps read a little about him, and know the story of his surprising
appearance in this harbour six days after the arrival of Governor Phillip
with the First Fleet. One can hardy look at the obelisk, and at the tomb
of Pere Receveur near by, without picturing the departure of the French
ships after bidding farewell to the English officers and colonists. Sitting
at the edge of the cliff, one can follow Laperouse out to sea, with the
eye of imagination, until sails, poops and hulls diminish to the view
and disappear below the hazy-blue horizon. From 'Laperouse.'

There had been three years of drought, more or less severe,
over that portion of South Australia where Curriewildie Station was situated;
and what with the stock dying off in thousands for want of food and water,
and the damage done to fences and such buildings as an outlying station
boasts by bush fires, the revenue returns sent in by the manager to the
owner were not exhilarating reading. She, poor old lady, was a resident
in England, and had been so during the ten years which had elapsed since
her husband, the original owner of the station, had died. There had been
some heavy amounts sent home before the drought set in, and that, perhaps,
was the reason why she took it into her head that we who were employed
on the property were robbing her. Any way, that is what we thought, when
one day, without a word of warning, a young, fresh-faced Englishman arrived
at the head station with all the necessary documentary evidence to prove
to us--that is, Tom Smiles, the manager, and myself, the overseer--that
he had been sent out by Mrs. Halliday to take immediate possession from
us and send us about our business.--The Last Lemurian

The Dictionary took more than twenty years to complete and
contains more than one thousand biographies of prominent Australians or
persons closely connected with Australia. Serle comments in the Preface
that "I have endeavoured to make the book worthy of its subject. It would
have been better could I have spent another five years on it, but at seventy-five
years of age one realizes there is a time to make an end."

Go to the South Pole site for more information about Shackleton and South Pole
exploration.

When I returned from the Nimrod Expedition on which we had
to turn back from our attempt to plant the British flag on the South Pole,
being beaten by stress of circumstances within ninety-seven miles of our
goal, my mind turned to the crossing of the continent, for I was morally
certain that either Amundsen or Scott would reach the Pole on our own
route or a parallel one. After hearing of the Norwegian success I began
to make preparations to start a last great journey---so that the first
crossing of the last continent should be achieved by a British Expedition.
We failed in this object, but the story of our attempt is the subject
for the following pages, and I think that though failure in the actual
accomplishment must be recorded, there are chapters in this book of high
adventure, strenuous days, lonely nights, unique experiences, and, above
all, records of unflinching determination, supreme loyalty, and generous
self-sacrifice on the part of my men which...still will be of interest
to readers who now turn gladly...to read...the tale of the White Warfare
of the South. The struggles, the disappointments, and the endurance of
this small party of Britishers, hidden away for nearly two years in the
fastnesses of the Polar ice, striving to carry out the ordained task...make
a story, which is unique in the history of Antarctic exploration. From
"South"

The scene of the new beginning here studied was a distant
and at first despised part of the dowry of that fairest mistress "Trade",
for whom Britain, Holland and France long fought. It was peopled first
by outcasts, rebels and adventurers, stiffly governed for two generations
by British officials, and to this day is largely financed by the British
middle class. For a full century the little communities were outworks
of the industrial revolution in Britain. In clearing the crowded gaols,
in producing raw materials and food for the city-dwellers of the old land,
they played a role of increasing importance in the grand speculation of
industrialism--that experiment on which the British people have staked
their capital, their mighty energy, their very life-blood. Australia emerged
from the degradation of convictism by taking the place for which Spain
had proved inadequate in the divided tasks of growing and manufacturing
wool, both formerly discharged by Britain herself. (From the Preface
to An Economic History of Australia.)

...the archives of the Public Record Office of England have
been successfully ransacked by the son of an early Victorian colonist,
who has lately published the result of his five years' painstaking research.
To Mr. Labilliere belongs the credit of having gathered from the vast
collection of State Papers preserved in the Colonial and Admiralty offices
in London most of the missing records; and, for the first time, we read
in his volumes the true story of the first discovery and subsequent exploration
of this province, given in the exact words of the men who did the work.
But for some of these missing documents Mr. Labilliere sought in vain;
and the Journals of Grimes and Knopwood, now published, are of that number.
These fill up gaps in his collection, and their value will be best seen
when read in connection with his full and clear narrative, which at the
same time has rendered it unnecessary in this place to do more than sketch-in
a few outlines left by Mr. Labilliere untouched. [See Labilliere,
above]

The Historical section contains, in twenty chapters...a
sketch of the discovery and foundation of the Three Colonies, and the
principal political and social events in their respective careers, between
the landing of the first fleet in Port Jackson and the opening of the
gold mines at Mount Alexander. In the preparation of the first seven chapters...I
had, in addition to the oral information of old colonists and valuable
MSS., the assistance of the works of Collins, Wentworth, &amp;c. The
remaining thirteen chapters, which include the administrations of Governors
Bourke, Gipps, and Fitzroy, in New South Wales: the Land Question; Emigration
Transportation; the Constitutional Contests of the first Australian
Representative Council; and the whole History of the Colonisation of South
Australia, are in the strictest sense of the term original.

Somewhere about the same year, 1837, Grandfather Geraldine
took ship for the same destination. I can give no biography of him, except
to say that he had all the scoundrelly qualities of the best type of Irishman.
He set out with the notion that Australia would provide none of the luxuries
of life at all, and equipped himself accordingly with a wife, a wooden
house numbered in parts, a great many hogsheads of claret, and several
tons of Irish earth, which served during the voyage as ballast, and afterwards
as a foundation for the wooden house and a protection against snakes.
He set up the wooden house facing Sydney Harbour on the pleasant heights
which overlook Rushcutter's Bay. Perhaps in that year people still were
cutting rushes there, or purses for a change when any plutocrat was mad
enough to take a stroll by its shores. It was rustic, with the arid yet
exotic charm of Australian scenes before they become professional beauty-spots.
The wooden house, too, was rustic, and must have looked paltry among the
stone palaces which other pioneers had built with the help of convict
labour, and which were staffed with a nice assortment of forgers, poachers,
and even duellists who had been assigned as servants. From Boomerang.

Many foolish little birds try to fly before they are strong
enough, and so flutter to the ground, where they become easy prey to enemies.
Karaway, the White Cockatoo, wasn't going to make similar mistakes. Barring
accidents, he had a long life before him. Was not his great-great-grandmother
over a hundred years old? There was, indeed, no need to hurry at the beginning.
He was so well feathered, when his mother coaxed him out of the hollow
spout at the top of a big red gum tree, that from the ground he and his
parent looked as much alike as two peas. From an ugly, clumsy-looking,
almost naked, dark-skinned infant, who nodded and rocked his big head
and squawked all day, he had become a sprightly and elegant bird. [From
Karaway the Cockatoo]

[Southwell embarked as a midshipman in the Sirius in 1787 and
was made a mate on the voyage to NSW.]

The moskitos are very troublesome, and insects of almost every kind
are here in g't number. The large ant, both black and brown, when they
attack us give g't pain, tho' of no long duration, and is not attend'd
with so tedious an itching as the bite of the small one occasion, who
are almost as much to be fear'd as the muskitos.

Mr. Hogarth, of Cross Hall, had been taken suddenly ill
a few days previously, and had never recovered consciousness so far as
to be able to speak, though he had apparently known those who were about
him, and especially the two orphan nieces whom he had brought up as his
daughters. He had no other near relations whom any one knew of, and had
never been known to regret that the name of Hogarth, of Cross Hall, was
likely to become extinct. He had the reputation of being the most eccentric
man in the country, and was thought to be the most inconsistent. From
'Mr Hogarth's Will'

I certainly did love these people, and knew I should feel
it much whenever I should part from them. No doubt I have omitted many
things relating to them which I ought to have described and may think
of at some future time, but I do not think I have flattered them. Some
day perhaps an expedition may be fitted out to try and find them; that
is, if my story is believed, which I think rather doubtful, seeing that
there is only my unsupported word; and it was unfortunate that I had nothing
to show from that country to confirm my statements.

The history of the Hawkesbury District between the years
1788 and 1794 consists of the discovery, exploration and naming of the
river and its tributaries, among them the McDonald and the Colo Rivers,
by Governor A. Phillip and Captains Collins, Johnston, Watkin, and Tench.
These and others made several successive visits to the Hawkesbury River,
reaching as far as Richmond Hill. In the year 1794 Lieut.-Governor Major
Grose placed the first twenty-two settlers along the banks of the Hawkesbury
River and South Creek, railed then Ruse's Creek, as James Ruse, the man
who first grew wheat at Parramatta, had a grant of land at the junction
of that stream with the Hawkesbury. The following year many more families
were settled, and as the natives were troublesome, some troops from the
N.S.W. Corps were sent up, and the settlement of Windsor, then called
Green Hills, was fairly launched.

IN collating these stories and literary sketches from the files of The
Bulletin, the aim has been to make an interesting book. It has not been
attempted to choose the best examples of literary style. Judged by a
high canon, our most talented story-writers are still only clever
students of the art of writing. A mere two or three have been able to
earn a living by the profession of literature, and even these have been
obliged to make the perilous compromise with journalism. So the stories
and sketches which follow are usually the literary dreams of men of
action, or the literary realisation of things seen by wanderers. Usually
they are objective, episodic, detached--branches torn from the Tree of
Life, trimmed and dressed with whatever skill the writers possess
(which often is not inconsiderable). —A G Stephens (Editor)

The moonlight flutters from the sky, To meet her at the
door,
A little ghost, whose steps have passed, Across the creaking floor.
And rustling vines that lightly tap, Against the window-pane,
Throw shadows on the white-washed walls, To blot them out again.From 'A Little Ghost' by Mary Gilmore.

The recovery of the long-lost manuscript Relación
of Captain Don Diego de Prado y Tovar, who accompanied Pedro Fernandez
de Quiros on his famous voyage of exploration in the South Seas in 1605-6,
is undoubtedly the most important "find" of virgin historical
material made in modern times. It furnishes us for the first time with
a detailed account of the discovery of Torres Strait and Northmost Australia,
made during the continuation of the voyage to Manila by Prado and Torres
after the parting of the ships at the Island of Espiritu Santo, whence
Quiros returned to America.

Discoveries in Australia, with an Account of the Coasts and Rivers
Explored and Surveyed During the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, in the Years
1837-38-39-40-41-42-43. Also a Narrative of Captain Owen Stanley's
Visits to the Islands in the Arafura Sea.). This ebook is available
from the Australian Explorers Journals
page.

Of the Australian shores, the North-western was the least
known, and became, towards the close of the year 1836, a subject of much
geographical speculation. Former navigators were almost unanimous in believing
that the deep bays known to indent a large portion of this coast, received
the waters of extensive rivers, the discovery of which would not only
open a route to the interior, but afford facilities for colonizing a part
of Australia, so near our East Indian territories, as to render its occupation
an object of evident importance.
His Majesty's Government therefore determined to send out an expedition
to explore and survey such portions of the Australian coasts as were wholly
or in part unknown to Captains Flinders and King.

On Saturday night they went to Bob Fenner's dance-room,
or strolled down to Paddy's Market. When Jonah was flush, he took her
to the "Tiv.", where they sat in the gallery, packed like sardines. If
it were hot, Jonah sat in his shirtsleeves, and went out for a drink at
the intermission. When they reached home, they stood in the lane bordering
the cottage where Ada lived, and talked for an hour in the dim light of
the lamp opposite, before she went in.--Jonah

Friday, 4th May, Gum and Spinifex Plains. At times this
country is visited by blacks, but it must be seldom, as since we left
the Fisher we have only seen the track of one, who seems to have come
from the east, and to have returned in that direction. The spinifex in
many places has been burnt, and the track of the native was peculiar--not
broad and flat, as they generally are, but long and narrow, with a deep
hollow in the foot, and the large toe projecting a good deal; the other
in some respects more like the print of a white man than of a native.
Had I crossed it the day before, I would have followed it. My horses are
now suffering too much from the want of water to allow me to do so. If
I did, and were not to find water to-night, I should lose the whole of
the horses and our own lives into the bargain....

An Account of the Sea Coast and Interior of South Australia
with Observations on Various Subjects Connected with its Interests--included
in Expedition into Central Australia, above.

I still retained a strong impression on my mind that some
change was at hand, and on this occasion, I was not disappointed; but
the view was one for which I was not altogether prepared. We had, at length,
arrived at the termination of the Murray. Immediately below me was a beautiful
lake, which appeared to be a fitting reservoir for the noble stream that
had led us to it; and which was now ruffled by the breeze that swept over
it. From 'Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia.'
Volume. II.

Few of the early pioneers of Western and North-Western Queensland are
now in the land of the living, and to collate any reminiscences of the
distant past, of men and matters--the dangers and hardships they underwent
through, droughts and floods, savage blacks, hunger and thirst, &c.,
&c.--may be of interest to many readers of the present day and to
certain extent illustrate the hard conditions of life in the wild regions
at that period.

NOTE: Many of the works mentioned in this ebook can be accessed from
this page!

The number of events described in a Source Book must necessarily
be smaller than that in histories of another type; but the aim is to place
the student in contact with the evidence of history in order that he may
become his own historian by drawing his own deductions from the contemporary
records. The greatest historian can find no materials ulterior to such
as are here presented, for there is nothing ulterior to them but the deeds
themselves. They are the records written by the men who gave their life
and health to lay the foundation of Australia's greatness--by Phillip,
weakening under the racking cares of the infant state; by Sturt in the
scorching desert, as the last duty of an exhausting day. They are aglow
with the heat of action; they are inspiring in their quiet modesty and
strength.

Thomas and Anne Thompson were among those who determined
to leave England for New South Wales. They had been married eight years;
their family was increasing, and labor becoming scarcer and scarcer. They
heard of other families emigrating and that they easily got high wages,
and lived in plenty: so they thought with their four children they would
do so also. They were both honest, hard working and strong people, and
Anne had been well brought up by a careful and pious mother, who had lived
many years as servant in the squire's family.--Tales of the Bush.

Abel Janszoon Tasman's Journal, including Tasman's Life and Labours,
edited by J E Heeres. (see HEERES, above) See
the Abel Janszoon TASMAN page for
details of the ebook.

This land being the first land we have met with in the South
Sea and not known to any European nation we have conferred on it the name
of Anthony Van Diemensland in honour of the Honourable Governor-General,
our illustrious master, who sent us to make this discovery; the islands
circumjacent, so far as known to us, we have named after the Honourable
Councillors of India, as may be seen from the little chart which has been
made of them.

The dread of want in a country destitute of natural resource
is ever peculiarly terrible. We had long turned our eyes with impatience
towards the sea, cheered by the hope of seeing supplies from England approach.
But none arriving, on the 2nd of October the 'Sirius' sailed for the Cape
of Good Hope, with directions to purchase provisions there, for the use
of our garrison. From 'A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port
Jackson.'

It is becoming an axiom in anthropology that what is needed
is not discursive treatment of large subjects but the minute discussion
of special themes, not a ranging at large over the peoples of the earth
past and present, but a detailed examination of limited areas. This work
I am undertaking for Australia, and in the present volume I deal briefly
with some of the aspects of Australian kinship organisations, in the hope
that a survey of our present knowledge may stimulate further research
on the spot and help to throw more light on many difficult problems of
primitive sociology.

The mines are overrun with ruffians, who have no fear of
law, and can only be kept in awe by courage superior to their own. Of
this we were quickly made acquainted, as we were considered, by the old
residents, green, having but recently arrived, and not yet learned the
mysteries of Ballarat.

W H TIETKENS (1844-1933)[commonly spelled TIETKINS in the works of other explorers.]

Tuesday, April 16th.--Camp No. 12. Bar. 27.580in., ther.
56° at dawn.--Very heavy dew during the night, but a most lovely morning.
Our arrangements all completed, we packed up and started. Mr. MacDonald
kindly gave me all the fat of a bullock that he killed last night. Many
and various have been the attentions that we have received from this kind-hearted
gentleman during our stay near his homestead, among others was a liberal
supply of fresh milk sent down to our camp every morning, besides which,
upon hearing that my watch was broken, he very generously lent me his
for the journey. It will be understood that a timekeeper is a most important
item in the outfit of such a party; observation for position would be
almost impossible without one.

If, my jaded and fagged friend of the city--if you would
venture upon a new experience, you will want to know where you can go.
Possibly you know only of the ordinary tourist resorts. Well, Mr. Tompkins
here sets before you some two or more scores of interesting trips well
within the reach of everybody. Here are short and easily negotiable trips,
occupying but a few hours, which the author has verified from actual experience.
The practice is with him as well as myself, to construe the verb "to
go" into "to go afoot. Given good health, a holiday, some few
modest coins of the realm, and a live companion, you will here find entrance
into Arcady, or the Cambewarra, which, I take it is geographically the
same; your midday meal is enjoyed in the open, and a clean bed and plain
fare at dusk in some quiet unpretentious village inn; at break of day
you start, and away you go with your swag and your staff, "While
the winds up aloft whistle to a tune."--From the Introduction by W Mogford Hamlet.

"He knows more about sheep than any man this side of the
Mary," said her husband. From all this I trust the reader will understand
that the Christmas to which he is introduced is not the Christmas with
which he is intimate on this side of the equator--a Christmas of blazing
fires in-doors, and of sleet arid snow and frost outside--but the Christmas
of Australia, in which happy land the Christmas fires are apt to be lighted--or
to light themselves--when they are by no means needed.

Again, it was the policy of the superintendent to put two
gangs of similar strength at the same kind of work within view of each
other, when the overseers would vie one with the other to try which could
get most done; and dire was then the cursing, swearing, raging and tearing
of the rivals, who would goad on their men every instant with threats
of the torturing lash, uttered with all the real arrogance of low-bred
jacks-in-office, who, it need hardly be said, were capable of any atrocity
themselves, and would commit any crime rather than descend from their
ill-sustained eminences to work among their fellows. This is premised,
lest the reader should scarcely believe what follows; yet there are many
scores now alive in New South Wales who can vouch for the truth of the
leading features.

We changed [rail] cars. This was at Albury. And it was there,
I think, that the growing day and the early sun exposed the distant range
called the Blue Mountains. Accurately named. "My word!" as the Australians
say, but it was a stunning color, that blue. Deep, strong, rich, exquisite;
towering and majestic masses of blue--a softly luminous blue, a smouldering
blue, as if vaguely lit by fires within. It extinguished the blue of the
sky--made it pallid and unwholesome, whitey and washed-out. A wonderful
color--just divine.

Victoria has invented a set of rules for herself--a kind
of compound between the Rugby Union and Association. South Australia plays
the Victorian game. I suppose it is a heresy for an old Marlburian to
own it, but after having played all three games, Rugby, Association and
Victorian--the first several hundred times, the second a few dozen times,
and the third a couple of score of times--I feel bound to say that the
Victorian game is by far the most scientific, the most amusing both to
players and onlookers, and altogether the best; and I believe I may say
that on this point my opinion is worth having. Of course, men who are
accustomed to the English games, and have not played the Victorian, will
hold it ridiculous that the solution of the best game of football problem
should be found, as I believe it has been found, in Melbourne. But I would
ask them to remember that the Victorian game was founded by rival public
school men, who, finding that neither party was strong enough to form
a club of its own, devised it--of course not in its present elaborate
state--as a compromise between the two.

Although the considerations adverted to in the foregoing chapter,
rendered it impracticable to explore the s.w.
coast of New Holland to the extent my wishes first led me to imagine,
and prevented our ascertaining its boundary and connection with, or
separation from, Van Dieman's Land; yet the information we have
acquired, will open a field to those whose duty it may hereafter be to
perform that task; by shewing, that its s.w.
part may be approached with the greatest safety, as its shores are bold
with regular soundings to the distance of 8 or 9 leagues; and by the
discovery of the very excellent harbour in King George the Third's
Sound. Considering therefore its situation and conveniences as likely to
become of material importance to those whose pursuits may induce them to
navigate this and the pacific ocean, it may not be uninteresting to
detail, in a more particular manner, the circumstances that occurred
during our visit to a country hitherto so little known to Europeans.

This is a dictionary of Australian slang, and the earliest dictionary
of any kind produced in Australia.

With the utmost deference and respect, I beg leave to submit to your
perusal the following sheets. The idea of such a compilation first originated
in the suggestion of a friend; and however the theme may be condemned
as exceptionable by narrow minds, I feel confident you possess too much
liberality of sentiment to reject its writer as utterly depraved, because
he has acquired an extensive knowledge on a subject so obviously disgraceful.
True it is, that in the course of a chequered and eventful life, I have
intermixed with the most dissolute and unprincipled characters, and
that a natural quickness of conception, and most retentive memory, have
rendered me familiar with their language and system of operations.

Grace made an excellent managing wife. No cottage was cleaner
or more tasty, no meals so well cooked. No man turned out so neat and
well dressed as William. The rent was always paid, and all things prospered.
Grace worked hard; but as evening came, she never failed to be at the
garden paling to catch the first look, and if it was fine, they had their
evening stroll.

No woman, as she afterwards said, was ever half so happy; alas for the
blossom which had no root, and which the first wintry storm crushed to
the ground for ever!

All that you read in the works of Wentworth and Cunningham,
as to the healthfulness and beauty of the climate, is strictly true. There
are scarcely any diseases but what result immediately from intemperance.
Dropsy, palsy, and the whole train of nervous complaints, are common enough;
but then, drunkenness is the vice par excellence of the lower orders;
and the better class of settlers have not learned those habits of temperance
which are suited to the climate of Naples. The two classes often remind
me of English Squires and their grooms, as I used to see them at Florence,
just after the peace; the masters drinking at dinner, because they were
abroad, and after dinner because they were Englishmen; the servants drinking
always, because wine and brandy were cheap. Perhaps a generation must
pass away before the people here will accommodate their habits to the
climate, which is that of Italy, without either malaria or the sirocco.
From A Letter from Sydney.

Nov. 26.--I had to go up the river 8 miles before I could
get a crossing-place, and last night's rain had made the ground so heavy
that the horses were much distressed. I therefore camped as soon as we
had crossed. This morning Jemmy Cargara, in collecting the horses, found
Burke's trail returning across the plain, and going S.S.E.

The discovery of Tasmania and New Zealand was no chance
adventure. It was the result of a steady policy. It was the outcome of
the adventurous energy which in the 16th and 17th centuries created the
Dutch Republic; gave to Holland her Colonial Empire; and--not content
with her possession of the Eastern Archipelago--sent out her sailors to
search for a New world in the unknown regions of the mysterious South.
Tasman and Visscher are but types of the men who won for their country
her once proud position of mistress of the seas. From the Preafe to
Abel Janszoon Tasman: His Life and Voyages.

The bush was alive with excitement. Mrs Koala had a brand
new baby, and the news spread like wildfire. The kookaburras in the highest
gum-trees heard of it, and laughed and chuckled at the idea. In and out
of their burrows the rabbits came scuttling, their big brown eyes opening
wide with wonder as they heard the news. Over the grass the message went
where Mrs Kangaroo was quietly hopping towards her home. She fairly leapt
in the air with joy. "I must tell Mr Kangaroo!" she cried and bounded
away in great hops and leaps.

We never felt the lift, the Cosmos rose so lightly
from the slips. Insulated from all sound as we were in the cabin, we heard
none of the blare of departure either. Only, the warning glow of the red
bulb above the dial chart on the opposite wall told us that New York,
the whole American continent indeed, was sliding away beneath us.

I was much vexed at my carelessness in not knowing there
was to be a total eclipse of the moon. I might have been prepared to some
extent by rating my Adelaide timekeeper, and getting my true time at camp,
and though I had no telescope that would note the different contacts and
phases accurately, I might have approximately corrected my longitude.
Taken by surprise, when the eclipse commenced, I could get nothing to
be safely relied upon, though I tried. It was a splendid sight, and our
view was perfect. The moon was at its full, and the eclipse commenced
shortly after sundown, lasting for about two hours, during half of which
time it was total. After an hour the shadow began to move off.

Big, burly Tom M'Grundy, with the thirst of a sponge, features
of a red, red nose, the heart of an angel, and the financial genius of
a Wilkins Micawber--his I. O. U.s and P. N.s would have covered the Old
Man Plain with a pavement of tesselated indebtedness--drove up to the
boats as they were raising steam for the trip to Echuca.

The letters were written to his aunt in Dumfries "giving a particular
account of the settlement of New South Wales, with the customs and manners
of the inhabitants."

The air, the sky, the land, are objects entirely different from all
that a Briton has been accustomed to see before. The sky clear and warm;
in the summer very seldom overcast, or any haze discernable in the azure;
the rains, when we have them, falling in torrents, & the clouds
immediately dispersing. Thunder, as said, in loud contending peals,
happening often daily, & always within every two or three days,
at this season of the year. Eruscations and flashes of lightning, constantly
succeeding each other in quick and rapid succession. The land, an immense
forest, extended over a plain country, the maritime parts of which,
are interspersed with rocks, yet covered with venerable majestic trees,
hoary with age, or torn with tempests.--In a word, the easy, liberal
mind, will be here filled with astonishment, and find much entertainment
from the various novel objects that every where present themselves.

BY the appointment of Lachlan Macquarie as governor
of New South Wales, the government showed that English opinion had changed
regarding the qualifications required by the man who was to administer
and control the affairs of the distant colony. Macquarie's predecessors
had been naval officers. When captain William Bligh had been appointed
at a salary of £2,000 per annum, it had been recognised that the
growth and importance of the settlements made it necessary that an officer
of not less than flag rank should hold the position. The disastrous result
of placing a stern, outspoken naval post-captain in the command of a colony
where the military party was predominant had been shown in the usurpation
of Bligh's government. The appointment of a military governor of equal
rank was determined, and the final selection was made of Macquarie. Instead
of being accustomed to the bluff manners of the quarter-deck, Macquarie
was courteous and politic. He had served on the staffs of the earls of
Harrington and Cavan, Sir Robert Abercromby, Sir David Baird, and General
James Stuart, and by experience had acquired the attributes necessary
for an executive officer to avoid friction and useless controversies.

As I was rejoining her a strange low whirring was audible,
and looking up I saw in a corner of the high-arched roof a horrible face
watching me out of black narrow eyes. I confess that I was very much startled
at the apparition, but the next moment realized what it was. The creature
hung with its ugly fleshy wings extended over a grotesque stone head that
leered down upon me, its evil-looking snout projecting into the room;
it lay perfectly still, returning me glance for glance, until moved by
the repulsion of its presence I clapped my hands, and cried loudly; then,
slowly flitting in a circle round the roof, it vanished with a flapping
of wings into some darker corner of the rafters. Mrs Batty was astounded,
and expressed surprise that it had managed to conceal itself for so long.--From
The Stone Chamber

Both horse and rider were manifestly weary. The scrubby ridges and
broken gullies, characteristic of the Upper Dawson country of Queensland,
seemed interminable. Over the ridge, longer and more forbidding than
previous ones, the rays of a fast-disappearing sun shed a lustre that
made it almost beautiful. The young man on the flea-bitten grey drew
rein mechanically, and muttered an imprecation. He was dressed bush
fashion--slouch hat, Crimean shirt, serviceable riding pants, and a
belt out of which protruded the handle of a murderous-looking revolver.
His carriage and demeanor denoted connection at some time or other with
one of Her Majesty's services. He had the confidence which comes of
training and discipline, and the reckless abandon which only youth and
excellent health can give. Turning in his saddle, he glanced around
him. "By Jove," he muttered, "this has been a most trying
day. It looks like camping out again, and sleeping with one eye open
in case of blacks."

Michael Howe...was born at Pontefract in Yorkshire in the year 1787,
and was bound apprentice to a merchant vessel at Hull; but he served
only two years when he ran away and entered on board a man-of-war. In
the year 1811 he was apprehended for robbing a miller on the highway,
and tried at the York assizes following; but from an informality in
the indictment the capital part of the charge was abandoned, and he
received sentence of seven years transportation. He arrived at this
settlement in the ship Indefatigable, Captain Cross, in the month
of October 1812.

The animals are, the kangaroo, native dog, (which is a smaller
species of the wolf,) the wombat, bandicoot, kangaroo rat, opossum, flying
squirrel, flying fox, etc. etc. There are none of those animals or birds
which go by the name of "game" in this country, except the heron. The
hare, pheasant and partridge are quite unknown; but there are wild ducks,
widgeon, teal, quail, pigeons, plovers, snipes, etc. etc., with emus,
black swans, cockatoos, parrots, parroquets, and an infinite variety of
smaller birds, which are not found in any other country. In fact, both
its animal and vegetable kingdoms are in a great measure peculiar to itself.

At the era of discovery by Tasman, Van Diemen's Land was
inhabited. He heard, or thought he heard, the voices of people and the
sound of a trumpet: he noticed the recently cut notches, five feet asunder,
on the bark of the trees, and he saw the smoke of fires. He inferred that
they possessed some unusual method of climbing, or that their stature
was gigantic. In the sound, the colonist recognises the vocal cooey
of the aborigines, and learns from the steps "to the birds' nests,"
that they then hunted the opossum, and employed that method of ascent,
which, for agility and daring has never been surpassed. Thus, during more
than 150 years, this country was forgotten; and such were the limits of
European knowledge, when the expedition of Cook was dispatched by Great
Britain to explore this hemisphere. No navigator brought larger views,
and a temper more benevolent, to the task of discovery. To some nations
he opened the path of civilisation and religion: to this race he was the
harbinger of death. Volume 2

Entering Port Phillip on the morning of the 13th December,
1840, we were wafted quickly up to the anchorage of Hobson's Bay on the
wings of a strong southerly breeze, whose cool, and even cold, temperature
was to most of us an unexpected enjoyment in the middle of an Australian
summer. A small boat came to us at the anchorage containing Mr. and Mrs.
D.C. McArthur and others who had friends or relations on board, and who
told us that for some days there had been excessive heat and a hot wind,
which had now reacted in this southerly blast, to go on probably into
heavy rain, the country being excessively dry.

The early history of bushranging in Australia
will never be written, for the facts have never been recorded. Limited
though the colony was in extent, its literature--even its journalism--was
still more limited. Moreover, the first men who "took the bush"
were neither important nor interesting enough to obtain more than a passing
mention in those Governors' despatches which are our chief authorities
for early colonial history. Owing to the stringent military rule during
the first years of convict settlement, the unknown character of the country,
and the absence of prey in the shape of men with money or other possessions
(the aborigines being the only occupants of the soil outside the properly
formed settlements), those who were called bushrangers then were simply
men who had broken away from their gangs in the hope of escaping from
the torture of labour under Government. The name has been made to carry
a very different meaning since then, being applied to men who, some from
choice and some from necessity, ranged the bush as freebooters, "sticking-up"
settlers and travellers and demanding in orthodox style "your money
or your life."From: History of Australian Bushranging.

26 January, 1788. At ten o'clock the Sirius, with
all the ships, weighed, and in the evening anchored in Port Jackson, with
a few trifling damages done to some of them, who had run foul of each
other in working out of Botany Bay. Port Jackson I believe to be, without
exception, the finest and most extensive harbour in the universe, and
at the same time the most secure, being safe from all the winds that blow.
It is divided into a great number of coves, to which his excellency has
given different names. That on which the town is to be built, is called
Sydney Cove. It is one of the smallest in the harbour, but the most convenient,
as ships of the greatest burden can with ease go into it, and heave out
close to the shore. Trincomalé, acknowledged to be one of the best
harbours in the world, is by no means to be compared to it. In a word,
Port Jackson would afford sufficient and safe anchorage for all the navies
of Europe. The Supply had arrived the day before, and the governor, with
every person that could be spared from the ship, were on shore, clearing
the ground for the encampment. In the evening, when all the ships had
anchored, the English colours were displayed; and at the foot of the flag-staff
his Majesty's health, and success to the settlement, was drank by the
governor, many of the principal officers, and private men who were present
upon the occasion.

Successful Exploration through the Interior of Australia.
From the Journals and Letters of William John Wills. Edited by his
father, William Wills. This ebook is available from the Australian Explorers Journals page.

We proceeded down the creek for seven miles, crossing a
branch running to the southward, and followed a native track leading to
that part of the creek where Mr. Burke, Mr. Wills, and King encamped after
their unsuccessful attempt to reach Mount Hopeless and the northern settlements
of South Australia, and where poor Wills died. We found the two gunyahs
situated on a sand-bank between two waterholes and about a mile from the
flat where they procured nardoo seed, on which they managed to exist so
long. Poor Wills's remains we found lying in the wurley in which he died,
and where King, after his return from seeking for the natives, had buried
him with sand and rushes. From Mr Howitt's diary.

The complete title of this work provides an apt description of its
contents:

"Narrative of a Voyage Round the world comprehending an account
of the wreck of the ship "Governor Ready," in Torres Straits;
a description of the British Settlements on the coasts of New Holland,
more particularly Raffles Bay, Melville Island, Swan River, and King
George's Sound; also, the manners and customs of the Aboriginal Tribes;
with an Appendix, containing remarks on transportation, the treatment
of convicts during the voyage, and advice to persons intending to emigrate
to the Australian Colonies."

This little History, in eight chapters, only touches a few
of the more prominent incidents connected with pastoral settlement and
the gold discovery in the Ballarat district. The compiler has seen the
growth of the town from a mere collection of canvas tents among the trees
and on the grassy slopes and flats of the wild bush to its present condition.
Less than 20 years ago there was not a house where now stands this wealthy
mine and farm-girdled city, whose population is nearly equal to the united
populations of Oxford and Cambridge, and exceeding by several thousands
the united populations of the cities of Winchester, Canterbury, Salisbury,
and Lichfield at the time of the gold discovery. This is one of the truths
which are magnificently stranger than fiction.

The object of this work is to preserve, before civilization
has made them obsolete, the traditions and customs of the aboriginal natives
of the North-West of Western Australia--particularly those of the Pilbarra
district--as accurately as possible, based upon upwards of twenty years'
observation.

I have not attempted to defend the doings of the ill-starred Bushveldt
Carbineers, or the policy of those who employed them.
The methods of dealing with prisoners, which have been solely attributed
to that corps, were in active operation before the so-called "Australian"
officers went to the Spelonken district--a fact which the English press,
and a large section of the Australian press, systematically ignored.
When I arrived in Australia, I found that the grossest misrepresentations
had been made by those primarily responsible for the manner of the warfare
which "staggered humanity," and that they had succeeded in linking the
name of Australia with the most tragic and odious incidents connected
with a mercenary and inglorious war.

The story may begin in a Greek Utopia, written by an author
named Theopompus about 350 B.C.

"At length in process of talk Selenus told Midas of certain islands
named Europia, Asia, and Libia, which the Ocean Sea circumscribeth and
compasseth round about; and that without this world there is a continent
or parcel of dry land which in greatness is infinite and immeasurable";
and he told of its "green meadows and pasture plots," its
"big and mighty beasts," its gigantic men, who, "in the
same climate exceed the stature of us twice," its "many and
divers cities, its laws and ordinances clean contrary to ours."
[From: The Discovery of Australia]

[From these initial words Wood takes us on a voyage of discovery through
the centuries. This culminates in Cook's landing on the east coast of
Australia and Flinders' mapping of the continent.]

I think I hear You saying, "Where the D--ce is Sydney Cove
Port Jackson"? and see You whirling the Letter about to find out the the
Name of the Scribe: Perhaps You have taken up Salmons Gazetteer, if so,
pray spare your Labour, and attend to Me for half an Hour--We sailed from
the Cape of Good Hope on the 12th of November 1787-- As that was the last
civilized Country We should touch at, in our Passage to Botany Bay We
provided ourselves with every Article, necessary for the forming a civilized
Colony, Live Stock, consisting of Bulls, Cows, Horses Mares, Colts, Sheep,
Hogs, Goats Fowls and other living Creatures by Pairs. We likewise, procured
a vast Number of Plants, Seeds & other Garden articles, such, as Orange,
Lime, Lemon, Quince Apple, Pear Trees, in a Word, every Vegetable Production
that the Cape afforded. Thus Equipped, each Ship like another Noah's Ark,
away we steered for Botany Bay, and after a tolerably pleasant Voyage
of 10 Weeks & 2 Days Governour Phillip, had the Satisfaction to see
the whole of his little Fleet safe at Anchor in the said Bay.